


Another Night, Another Dream (But Always You)

by smkkbert



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For thirteen years every night Oliver had been meeting the same girl in his dreams. As he grew up so did she. But he had never been able to touch her or talk to her. When the dreams suddenly stop Oliver finds himself unable to let her go.<br/>Reality seems to want to surprise him though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once upon my dreams?

_The way she hurried through the crowd of people reminded him of a snake. She almost ran, always alternating between moving towards her right and her left, always being careful of not touching any of the people that were in her way even if that meant to minimize her body’s breadth by moving her shoulders closer together. Whenever she still accidently touched anyone she smiled politely and said something, probably that she was sorry, but needed to hurry._

_He had trouble keeping up with her because unlike her he couldn’t minimize his body’s breadth as much as she could. She turned her head to look at him every now and then to make sure he was still there, smiling and talking to him, but he couldn’t hear anything she said._

_Of course he couldn’t hear her. Since he had gotten to know her years ago he had never heard her voice. That had never stopped her from talking to him obviously. He had no idea what she was talking about, but something about the way her lips moved when she talked and her eyes shone meanwhile made his heartbeat raise every time._

_“We are at an airport, right?” he asked when he saw some displays informing about times and gates of several flights and for the first time since they had arrived he took in his surrounding, but rather sooner than later turned his head to look back at her. She had her nose scrunched and looked carefully at one of the displays. “Are you travelling?”_

_He wasn’t sure why he kept talking to her. He was kind of sure that she couldn’t hear him just like he couldn’t hear her. And even if she was able to hear him, he’d never find out about it because she couldn’t tell him about it. At least not the way he could hear it._

_“Where are you going?” he kept asking and looked around to find a hint of her destination. It might give him an idea of where he was going to meet her next time._

_But before he could find anything, she stopped and turned around, looking right back at him. Her high ponytail was swaying from the movement and her pink colored lips formed a happy smile._

_He felt his heartbeat fasten immediately. Only looking at her and seeing her smile had that effect on him. He couldn’t even think about what his reaction was going to be if he ever got to touch her. Probably the feeling of his fingertips brushing the back of her hand was going to be enough to set his whole body on fire or earning him a heart attack. He wasn’t sure._

_But before he could think about his possible reaction to the scenario that was probably never going to happen anyway she took a step forward, going right through him and everything went black._

 

That had been the last time he had seen her it was almost a week ago.  
There had been a time in Oliver Queen’s life when he would have done nearly everything to get rid of the girl that had been haunting his dreams since he was thirteen. As a teenager you expected hot girls that turn you on. At least Oliver had expected that.

Instead a little girl with dark hair and blue eyes had visited his dreamy every single night. He hadn’t been able to hear her or to touch her and still it had seemed like she had seen him and talked to him. She had taken him to places and shown him things, all the time talking without being heard.

He had seen her grow up from the little girl at the age of maybe nine years to a woman in the beginning of her twenties. He had watched her through her short Goth time and he had seen her taking a 180 degree turn after that, dying her dark hair blonde and replacing her dark clothes with lightly colored dresses. He had seen her happy and sad and in any possible mood.

So to make a long story short: the dreams had started when he had been a boy. Visions of a little first dark haired and from some point blonde ball of sunshine who he would play and talk without really having a conversation and bond with for hours. As he grew up, so did she. And she was beautiful.  

Oliver couldn’t have thought about not seeing her every night anymore until the dreams had stopped last week. He had been with her at the airport, waking up with short breaths and a sore feeling in his chest, an aftermath of her walking through him.

The next night she hadn’t been in his dreams. He couldn’t say whether he had dreamt of anything the last nights, but he was sure he hadn’t been dreaming of her. He had always remembered every dream he had had of her.

So the ignorance of what he had been dreaming of these last nights was evidence that he hadn’t been dreaming of her. He knew he would remember it if it had been otherwise.

“You’re brooding again” Sara declared with a wide grin and knitted her eyebrow. “Still thinking about Reverie?”

Six and a half weeks after he had started dreaming of her he had named her Reverie. He had thought the name fit her and the situation that was bounding the two of them together. He had needed a name to tell people about her. Because dreaming about a stranger for eighteen nights in a row was not normal, and he had felt the need to talk about that.

“Come on, man!” Tommy laughed, putting an arm around his best friend’s shoulders. “You’ve been dreaming about that mysterious girl for more than ten years now. Finally you got rid of her! That has to mean that you can fully enjoy everything this world has to offer you. I know that one girl that-”

Oliver stopped listening. He had been dreaming about her for thirteen years, four months, one week and two days. She was a part of his life just like Tommy, Sara and Laurel, the friends he was sitting in a coffee shop with right now.  
She had been a friend for years. Even though they had never truly talked to one another or even really met. He still considered her a friend.

Well, to be honest, she was probably a lot more than a friend to him already. Because although she had been so young when she had first appeared in his dreams she had grown up and the difference between their ages had become more and more irrelevant. Shortly after his 21rd birthday he had fallen madly in love with her. Actually, he had probably fallen in love with her a lot sooner, but that was when he had been first able to fully admit having fallen in love with a girl he had only met in his dreams so far.

He had been in love with her for five years now.

For a while he had felt like a creep because he had been sure that she had been younger and he hadn’t felt quite comfortable about it.  
But what the hell?! She had been only in his dreams and he hadn’t been able to touch her anyway. And she had always seemed so adult to him, not like other girls her age. And he didn’t even know her age. He had just guessed.  
So he had fully admitted to be in love with her to everyone who had wanted to hear it.

It hadn’t stopped him from meeting other women, though. Reverie was unavailable for him. So he had spent the last years, screwing around, never truly committing to anyone since she had always been on his mind and in his heart.

“Come on, bro!” Tommy tried to demand Oliver’s attention once more. “The four of us! Party! Hot chicks! Tonight!”

“No hot chicks for you, buddy,” Laurel restricted and threw her napkin in her boyfriend’s face before putting her hand on top of Oliver’s, bending forward slightly and lowering her voice. “Maybe there’s a reason for why you stopped dreaming about Reverie. Maybe you’ve changed and your psyche has moved on from her.”

“Yes, Ollie,” Sara laughed amused about her sister’s sympathy for their friend’s weird situation. “Maybe you have just grown out of that little girl and are finally becoming a man.”

Oliver ignored Sara, still looking at Laurel. “So you say that maybe I have changed and that is why I don’t see her anymore? That maybe she doesn’t like me anymore?”

“No, no” Laurel answered hastily, squeezing his hand. “All I’m saying is that maybe things have changed. Maybe this isn’t even about you. Maybe it’s about her. Maybe she has grown out of this dream.”

“Or maybe she’s dead” Tommy added.

Oliver’s angry gaze met his friend’s eyes immediately. He knew it was crazy, but part of him thought that maybe Reverie was real. Maybe she existed somewhere and had the same dreams about him. The thought of her being dead took his breath away and made his heard clench painfully.

She couldn’t be dead.  
She wasn’t.

“Don’t listen to him” Laurel said, shaking her head at her boyfriend who only grinned amusedly and turned his head to his girlfriend’s sister, whispering something into her ear that made her giggle.

Before Laurel could say anything more Oliver got up, grunting.

“I’ll go get another cup of coffee.”

Walking to the sales counter he heard Laurel hissing at her sister and her boyfriend for their rude behavior. Laurel might not have always supported him with Reverie, but at least she had taken him seriously those last weeks and months, maybe even years.

He knew that his dreams and the way he lingered on them didn’t really make sense and might make him look like he was crazy. But fact was that he really believed in those dreams. He believed in the existence of his Reverie, and he believed that she belonged to him, the same way he knew that he belonged to her.

When his father had died during a trip with their family boat four years ago she had been the only person that had been able to make him smile again.  
He actually believed that she had been the one who had saved him from dying himself because-

Oliver didn’t get to think that to an end because before that could have happened the girl who stood right in front of him in the row turned around, bumping into him and spilling half of her coffee over his chest. The hotness of the liquid slowly crept through the fabric of his Henley, causing a slight feeling of pain on his skin.

Usually Oliver was just going to laugh about something like that and wave it off. A little bit of coffee on his shirt and on his chest? Not a big deal.

But today was not his day because the usual calmness he gained through the nightly meetings with Reverie had been used up those last days without her.

So when Oliver lifted his head he was ready to yell at her for not caring where she went, for bumping into him and spilling her hot coffee on him. He had even taken in a deep breath to let all of that out when suddenly all words drained away the moment he looked at her.

Deep blue eyes behind glasses locked with his equally blue ones. Full lips were colored in the same blazing red as her fingernails, two white teeth sunk into her lower lip. A tine body was clothed in a tight-fitting red skirt and a wide black blouse. Black high heels earned her some extra height. Her blonde hair was swaying in her high ponytail. Her cheeks had turned pink since she had blushed.

And she was babbling. Although he couldn’t hear it he saw it in the expression on her face.

Oliver felt his heartbeat fasten. His heart pounded against his ribcage with a force that actually made him wonder whether his ribs might break. He could barely breathe, and he felt like his whole body was set on fire.

He felt the need to pinch himself to make sure this was real and not another dream. He couldn’t remember to have fallen asleep. So he lifted his hand and pinched himself in the forearm. Still she didn’t disappear.

She had to be real. She was actually standing right in front of him.  
When she grabbed some of the paper napkins behind her and suddenly stroked them all over his chest, obviously intending to dry the fabric of the coffee, Oliver snapped back into presence day, actually being able to hear her rambling.

“I am so sorry, really! Usually I’m not that unaware of my surrounding although some people may claim differently. I am a little bit clumsy though, and today is such a big day because I have this really important job interview and I am just so nervous and- I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of that. Maybe I’m trying my best to give you reasons not to hate me for ruining your shirt and probably burn your skin. Really, I am so, so sorry.  
I thought the napkins might help, but they don’t obviously. It looks like they are making everything worse actually. You know, the English language doesn’t have a word for that, but the German does. They call it verschlimmbessern when you accidently make everything worse by trying to make things better. I think every language should have a word for that because I think most people have done something of that in their lives and–  
Are these all muscles underneath that shirt because honestly it feels that way and -  
Oh my god! My mouth just won’t stop talking and this is just getting more and more embarrassing, so I’m just going to shut up in 3…2…1…”

She pressed her lips together tightly, pulling them inside her mouth, and looked up at him with a slight smile and shy eyes. She still had the now wet napkins in her hands, holding them up to the height of her shoulder to both of her sides while she waited for him to say something.

Oliver couldn’t help himself. Still staring at her, he said the first thing that came into his mind, “I love you.”

She looked surprised, widening her eyes and staring at him, before she started laughing.

“If I had known that this was the key to gain someone’s love, I would have probably spilled coffee on a lot of guys before, and unlike this one it wouldn’t have been an accident. I mean, this would be a key to life. I could make anyone love me by just spilling coffee on them. That would actually be fun I guess and -  
Oh my god, I’m being late to my job interview. I am really, really sorry, but I gotta go. Bye.”

She moved to the door hastily, putting the used napkins into the trash can and hurried out of the coffee shop.

Oliver stared after her, watching her movements until her small figure disappeared in the crowd of people outside. His mouth was slightly parted, but he felt unable to say anything, still stunned by what had just happened.  
Slowly he moved back to the table where his friends still sat, laughing about something.

When he approached them, Sara lifted her eyebrows and cocked her head.

“What happened to you?” she asked grinning.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost” Tommy added, eying his friend up. “A ghost that pissed on your shirt actually.”

Oliver was still too consumed by the meeting to actually say something. Staring blankly, he let himself fall into the cushions of the seat next to Laurel.

“Earth to Ollie!” Laurel laughed, winking her hand in front of his face. “What happened to you?”

“I met her,” he said tonelessly before looking at one of them after another. “I met Reverie.”


	2. My destination?

She couldn’t help the smile that had been spreading on her face as soon as she had left the coffee shop where she had had that unique meeting with the cute stranger.

She had presumed that he might rip her head off because that is what his face had looked like when she had spilled her coffee on him. He had seemed so angry at her that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had started yelling at her in front of all those people and almost rip her head off.

Instead he had told her that he loved her.  
A total stranger told her that he loved her.

Smiling, she shook her head.

If she had been a little more courageous, she might have actually said something about that, but of course she hadn’t. She was the best in talking as long as she didn’t have to do any thinking before it. Well, she was actually very good at thinking as well, but talking and thinking together as in talking about what she was thinking in a not weird way was not an easy deal for her. Her brain-to-mouth-connection seemed to be damaged beyond repair.

Maybe she’d go back to the coffee shop after her job interview, hoping for the miracle of him still being there, and would ask him whether he still loved her.  
She shook her head to get rid of the memory of her cute stranger. She needed to concentrate on her job interview if she wanted to stay in Starling City any longer.

She tried to remember everything she had decided to tell who ever interviewed her today, quietly repeating every word in her head. She should probably try to talk as much about her education and try to avoid anything that involved her family if she wanted the job. And she really wanted the job.

Being some kind of genius and having earned a master’s degree in Cyber Security and Computer Science – very helpful to get the job.  
Being a young, little blonde with a lack of brain-to-mouth-control – might get in the way if whoever interviewed her wasn’t that humorous.  
Being daughter of an overly jovial Las Vegas cocktail waitress and a possibly dangerous, worldwide wanted cybercriminal – not helpful.

But she really, really, really wanted the job. So she was going to do whatever she had to do to convince the people in the company that she was meant for the job, despite her origins and despite her young age.

Squaring her shoulders she lifted her right foot from the ground to take a step forward when she heard someone shout “No!” behind her.

Before she could turn her head to find out what was going on, she felt two hand shove her back on the sidewalk at her shoulders, making her trip and fall to the ground. Although a stinging pain formed on both her hands she looked up.  
It was like the whole world slowed down. She saw how the person who had pushed her back tumbled a step back, stepping on the street. And although she kind of knew that everything was happening so unbelievably fast, she could still see it as if the time was slowed down.

The car approached. The guy was standing right on the street. The car hit him and the guy was pulled from his feet, jerked above the roof of the car and flew several meters through the air before falling down on the street while the brakes of the car screeched. 

For two endlessly long heartbeats all she could do was sit there and stare, trying to catch her breath and understand what had happened.  
When she was finally able to move, the world around her started moving in its right pace again. She heard herself scream to nobody in particular to call an ambulance while simultaneously rushing to her guardian angel, checking on his condition.

The moment she bent over his body and took a look at his face she recognized him.

“You?” she asked, cautiously cupping his bruised face and stroking one hand above his hair.

The stranger who had told her he loved her just minutes ago was looking at her with wide eyes, moving his mouth like he was trying to tell her something, but he was on the edge to lose consciousness, and before he could make a sound his eyes fell closed, and he drifted off into sleep. Or coma. Or something else. Something not fun.

“Everything will be okay,” she whispered. “You will be okay.”

The next ten minutes she kept whispering calming words to him, not sure if he was actually able to hear her and whether she was saying this to reassure him or herself.

When the ambulance arrived, she was pushed back by the medicals, telling her that they needed space to check on him. So she moved back, cowering on the floor and sending silent prayers to heaven, begging for his health.

As soon as she realized that they were taking him to the hospital she declared that she wanted to come with him, unable to leave him after he actually saved her life.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” the paramedic said, “but you can’t come with us. Only family.”

“Oh, I’m his wife,” she answered hastily.

The paramedic raised his eyebrows, looking at her doubtingly. “So… what’s his name?”

“His name is… it’s…” she began, but sighed when she realized that this wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “He saved my life, okay? He’s a total stranger. He has no idea who I am and he just saved my life.”

The paramedic kept staring at her for two more seconds before nodding towards the ambulance with an annoyed expression on his face. “Get in.”

Relieved to not have to leave him, she climbed into the back of the ambulance, sitting down on one of the chairs in there, and took his hand to hold it comfortingly in hers.

Half an hour later she was sitting alone in the hospital. She had been sitting there for a while now. She didn’t exactly know for how long she had been sitting there already, but it felt like forever.

Her guardian angel or hero or whatever he was to her had been brought into the OR. All she could do was waiting for the doctor to come to her and tell her anything about his condition. If he actually was going to tell her anything about it since she wasn’t family.

She put her head in her hands for what seemed like the at least hundredth time, hissing – also for the hundredth time – when the touch reminded her of the pain in her hands. There were bleeding scratches, nothing too bad, but it hurt.

She could have been dead. If the stranger hadn’t pushed her away, she would have probably been hit by the car and would have died. But instead of her, it was him lying in the OR, probably fighting for his life.  
It seemed so surreal to her.

Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back to rest on the cold wall behind her. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself down and stop the tears that were threatening to come back again.

“I’m sorry?” a friendly sounding female voice said, and she opened her eyes, finding three people – a beautiful woman, a young girl in school uniform and a familiar looking man – staring at her with worried eyes.

“Yes?” she answered, faltering.

“Hi, I’m Moira Queen. My son was brought in here because of an accident, and the nurse we talked to said that you were coming with him. So I thought maybe you could tell us some more.”

“Um…” She took a deep breath, forming her thoughts. “Yes. I… I don’t know… I… He… I was walking, and then he pushed my away and… and he was hit by a car and then… I’m sorry. I’m a little bit…”

She made wild gestures with her hands, trying to tell Mrs. Queen that she was-  
“Mrs. Queen?” she suddenly said with a frown.

“Yes.”

“As in Queen Consolidated Queen?” she asked.

The woman nodded. “Yes, Robert Queen was my husband. This is Walter Steele, my new husband. He’s managing the company while my son is still learning, and this is my daughter Thea.”

She was so not going to get that job at Queen Consolidated!

"I guess my son Oliver saved your life then.”

It had been her fault the future CEO of the company she wanted so desperately to work at had been hit by a car and was now lying in the hospital.  
Why did things like that always happen to her?

“Yes. Yes, he saved my life,” she said as soon as she realized that everyone seemed to wait for an answer. “He is a wonderful person. Obviously. He saved a stranger’s life.”

Bye, bye, Starling City. It had been nice to be here for a few days, but it looked like it wasn’t going to become her new home. She had been so excited about the job interview. The job would have been exactly what she had always hoped for.

But of course she had to get her future boss hit by a car!

When she felt Mr. Steele starring at her she wanted to say something, but before she could figure out whether she should go on her knees and beg for a second chance or rather reassure him that everything was going to be fine, a doctor approached them.

“How’s my brother?” the girl asked immediately.

“His condition is stable,” the doctor told them. “He has a few broken ribs, a laceration at his head, and we had to perform surgery on his leg since his shinbone is broken. He is still unconscious, but as soon as the medication will let up, he should wake up. We will have to keep him in here for at least three days to monitor his condition, but after that he can probably go home. He should rest, though.”

“We will take care of that. Thank you,” Mrs. Queen answered. “Can we see him now?”

“Yes, of course. It’s the second room to the right. Please keep in mind that he is still weak from the surgery and should not be upset.”

“Of course,” Mr. Steele answered while his wife and stepdaughter were rushing away already.

She stayed where she were, watching them leave and again let her face sink into her hands before she remembered her bruises and hissed, snapping her head back up with a groan.

“Are you okay?” the doctor asked.

“Except for the fact that I came all the way from Las Vegas to get this unbelievable job and instead of showing everyone that I am a competent woman, I spill a full cup of coffee on my future boss and then let him get hit by a car with several injuries which actually means that I can totally forget about that job. So now I have to find a new job offer somewhere in this world, book a flight, find a hotel to stay in for a few weeks until I am sure that I get the job and then I have to-“

“I actually meant your hands” the doctor interrupted her mildly, taking her hands in his to examine them. “There a few cuts and scratched. Does this hurt?”

He bent both her hands back and forth and she hissed in pain again.

“Okay, we will have to take a closer look on this” he told her. “Come with me please.”

She followed him without a word, silently saying goodbye to Starling City and the life she had hoped to build here.

 

_Oliver stared after her, watching her movements until her small figure disappeared in the crowd of people outside. His mouth was slightly parted, but he felt unable to say anything, still stunned by what had just happened._

_Slowly he moved back to the table where his friends still sat, laughing about something._

_When he approached them Sara lifted her eyebrows and cocked her head._

_“What happened to you?” she asked grinning._

_“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Tommy added, eying his friend up. “A ghost that pissed on your shirt actually.”_

_Oliver was still too consumed by the meeting to actually say something. Staring blankly ,he let himself fall into the cushions of the seat next to Laurel._

_“Earth to Ollie!” Laurel laughed, winking her hand in front of his face. “What happened to you?”_

_“I met her” he said tonelessly before looking at one of them after another. “I met Reverie.”_

_“What do you mean you met her?” Laurel asked immediately, silencing her boyfriend’s unspoken comment._

_“She… was just there” Oliver said, pointing back to the spot where she had spilled her coffee on him. “She… spilled her coffee on me and… I told her that I loved her and now she’s gone.”_

_“Gone?” his three friends asked in chorus._

_“She walked away, said she had an appointment.”_

_Three pair of eyes starred at him in disbelief while all Oliver could do was smile._

_He had met her. He had met Reverie. She had been standing right in front of him, talked to him and touched him. He had told her that he loved her, and she had actually heard it. She had heard it and said something about it even if it wasn’t the hoped for ‘I love you, too.’_

_“Oliver!” Sara screamed at him, making him wince._

_“What?” he asked._

_“Run!” Sara shouted the same time Tommy yelled something like, “Go get your girl!” and Laurel gestured towards the door._

_He moved immediately, running towards the door and in the same direction he had watched her leave. He was lucky to always have chosen running before any other physical training. He could only hope to be fast enough to actually catch up with her._

_Oliver had been too stunned by what had happened to hold her back from leaving or running after her as soon as she had left. Instead he had let several minutes pass before moving._

_He sent a silent prayer to a God he wasn’t sure existed for him to be in time to get to Reverie before she was lost to him again._

_As soon as he spotted the familiar blonde ponytail, he fastened his movements, finally catching up when she stopped at a red traffic light._

_He was so close to catching up when suddenly she lifted her foot, obviously starting to step forward although the traffic light was still red and a car came closer._

_“No!” he shouted in panic she might get hurt and he wasn’t ever going to be able to talk to her and really get to know her. So he literally jumped right in front of her and shoved her back to the sidewalk, hardly watching as she tripped and fell down on the floor, her face in a grimace of pain._

_He wanted to step towards her and take her hands, pull her from the floor and into his arms, but before he could move, he was pulled from his feet, jerked around, hit by the car he had protected her from._

_Oliver didn’t know how long he was up in the air before he finally hit the ground again. His head slammed down on the hard asphalt, causing pain on his forehead. With a groan he turned himself to his back, watching towards the blue sky._

_He tried to breathe, but found that no matter how deep he breathed in, it never seemed to be enough. His lungs were burning, his whole body aching._

_When a familiar beautiful face appeared in his view, Oliver smiled, knowing she was safe._

_Maybe this had always been his destination. Maybe he had been born and had been dreaming about her his entire life, had been saved by her in every way possible to actually save her life now. Maybe this had been what he had always been meant for._

_Oliver tried to tell her that, tried to tell her how much he loved her and how much she had given him, but he felt his consciousness fading and before he could say anything he felt his eyes falling closed and his mind go blank._

 

A strange dream, Oliver thought.

Normally his dreams were more peaceful. He watched her and talked to her while she read a book or told him about something he couldn’t hear because he had never hear her talk no matter how much she rambled or-  
He had never heard her talk.

Immediately the memories came rushing back. He had met her in that coffee shop. She had spilled her coffee on him. She had talked to him. She had touched him. He had told her he loved her. She had rambled and then she had left. He had run after her. He had saved her from getting hit by a car, instead being hit himself.

Oliver’s eyes snapped open. He had to blink a few times before he could actually see anything clearly, but found his mother and Thea sitting to both his sides while Walter stood at the end of the bed.

“Oh thank god, Ollie!” Thea exclaimed, hugging him tightly and kissing his cheek, while his mother squeezed his hand.

Oliver kept looking around.

He had saved Reverie’s life. Had she left after that? Had she been hurt and was lying in the hospital herself? Did she even know that he had saved her, or had she just assumed that he had been drunk or an idiot or something like that?

“Oliver, honey, what is going on?” his mothers asked worriedly.

He turned his head towards her and asked, “Where is she? Where is Reverie?”

Moira frowned, glancing at her husband.

“I’ll go and find a doctor” he said, leaving hastily.

“Ollie,” Thea whispered. “You had a dream. Probably.”

Oliver shook his head. “No. It wasn’t a dream. Not this time. She was there. Reverie was there, and I talked to her and I-“

“Oliver” Moira said, tears forming in her eyes as she stroked the side of his face. “Reverie isn’t real. She only exists in your dreams.”

Before he could answer her and convince her that Reverie was real, Walter stepped back into the room.

“The doctor will be here any second,” he told them. “I remembered how I knew that girl by the way. She applied for a position at QC. She actually would have had her job interview today and-“

Oliver shut his ears. The medications still had an effect on his brain. He had trouble to remember everything as clearly as he had seen it in his dreams. But he knew she had been real.

He had felt Reverie’s touch on his chest and on his face a little later on.  
He had heard her voice, finally knowing what it actually sounded like when she rambled, not only seeing it.

She had rambled. Something about that sentence rang a bell.  
There surely was something hidden in that information that he needed to remember.

He closed his eyes, envisioning her in front of him in that coffee shop.

“I am so sorry, really!” she had said. “Usually I’m not that unaware of my surrounding although some people may claim differently. I am a little bit clumsy though and today is such a big day because I have this really important job interview and I am just so nervous and- I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of that. Maybe I’m trying my best to give you reasons not to hate me for ruining your shirt and probably burn your skin. Really, I am so, so sorry.  
I thought the napkins might help, but they don’t obviously. It looks like they are making everything worse actually. You know, the English language doesn’t have a word for that, but the German does. They call it-“

Job interview. Reverie had told him that she had a job interview and from what he had seen of her in his dreams he was a hundred percent sure that she was into computer and everything that included technology. That would make her a welcomed employee at QC.

He opened his eyes, sitting up in bed although a burning pain filled his chest.  
“The girl with the job interview,” he said to Walter, who lifted his eyebrows in surprise, but nodded anyways. “She’s small and thin, wears glasses, a red skirt and black blouse, has blue eyes and blonde hair that’s wrapped up into a high ponytail. Right?”

Slowly Walter nodded, and Oliver had to keep himself from jumping right at his stepfather, grabbing the lapel of his suite jacket and scream at him to tell him where she was.

“You know her?”

Again Walter nodded.

“I need her address. Right now. I need to know where she is, where I can find her” he told him. “That girl is my Reverie.”

He saw from the winkle of his eyes that his sister and his mother were looking at each other, unsure of what to think about it. But Oliver kept his eyes on his stepfather.

“I can ask the head of our Human Resources Department about her address,” he answered quietly. “But I should warn you that maybe she is not who you are looking for.”

“She is who I am looking for. She is who I’ve been looking for my entire life,” he explained, smiling softly at the thought of her.

She was the love of his life. He knew there was no possibility he could ever be happy with any other woman. She was the only one who could make him happy.

There had never been any other woman.  
There wouldn’t be.

Walter must have left at some point because when Oliver looked up, his stepfather was reentering the room, holding his mobile in his hand.

“So I called the head of HR and I’ve got Miss Smoak’s address.”

“Smoke?” Oliver asked, a huge grin spreading on his face. “Smoke like haze?”

“S-M-O-A-K,” Walter spelled, sighing. “You really want to know her address?”

Oliver nodded, but frowned and lifted his head for Walter to wait before he could answer, asking instead, “What’s her name? Her full name?”

He felt strange to ask about her address and actually visiting her before he even knew her real name. He had been so used to calling her Reverie that he hadn’t thought about the possibility that maybe she was actually named differently. The name he had given her had just suited her so perfectly. She had been his reverie, his every dream.

He couldn’t imagine her to have one of those every-girl-names like Mary or Lisa or Anna. Her name had to be something unique.

“Her name is Felicity Megan Smoak.”

Felicity. Felicity. Felicity. Felicity Megan Smoak.

Oliver repeated her name over and over in his head like a prayer.

He couldn’t have thought about a better name for her.

Felicity meant good fortune and happiness. She meant probably both of it for him.


	3. I'll find my way to you

She had decided to spend her evening on the couch, wearing yoga-pants and a wide shirt that wasn’t only dirty, but also had several holes in it. Her hair was up in a messy knot, her glasses slid down to the tip of her nose. A box full of mint chocolate chip ice cream put in her lap and her laptop positioned on her thighs, she searched for an interesting job offer in the IT section halfheartedly.

Sighing, she rested her back against the rest of the couch and brought another full spoon of ice cream between her lips, trying to comfort herself since she had felt the need to wallow in self-pity ever since she had left the hospital hours ago.

The day had started so promising, Felicity thought sadly. She had woken up full of enthusiasm, desperately wanting to get that damn job she had come here for.

Everything had gone according to her plans until she had spilled her coffee on that stranger in the coffee shop and even then she hadn’t thought that her day could be ruined. How could a shy IT girl’s day be ruined by a hot stranger telling her that he loved her and looking at her like she was a goddamn treasure?!

But then he had pushed her back on the sidewalk she had left so carelessly, saving her life and risking his own in the process.

Felicity felt a shiver running through her when she thought about his body being jerked through the air before being slammed down onto the asphalt. She needed to shake her head and close her eyes to actually get rid of the image in her head.

Since life hated her, being guilty of a stranger’s almost death just wasn’t enough to make her go through. No, instead of letting that just be enough for the day, life had chosen to really, really push her to the limits.

So the guy who had saved her of course had to be the same guy who had told her that he loved her before. And of course he had to be the QC CEO’s stepson and future boss to the company she had been desired working for since she was a little girl.

And since that still hadn’t been enough, she had to actually get stitches on her hands.

And she hated needles. She really, really hated them.

So now she didn’t have a job. She didn’t know where to go and her bandaged hands hurt, making it almost impossible for her to work on her laptop.

Sighing, Felicity took another spoon of ice cream, melting the sweet food in her mouth and concentrating on the delicious taste to stop herself from crying. All day tears had been prickling in her eyes, threatening to roll down her cheeks with every blink of her eyes.

Once again she felt like crying. Everything she had worked for those last years was… maybe not gone since Queen Consolidated still existed, but at least it seemed to be unavailable for her right now.

So she needed to find something new. Since life had chosen to take Starling City away from her, it should at least show her where to go. So closing her eyes Felicity scrolled through the pages of job offers, stopping at some random point and opening her eyes.

“Central City,” she said with a nod, putting the laptop and the ice cream away, and got up from the couch. She put the glasses back in place and went over to the bed where her suitcase lay, staring to pack all her stuff into she had brought with her back into it.

She was going to pack now, book herself a flight and get away from here as soon as she could. The sooner she moved to the next chapter of her life, the sooner she was going to forget about what she could have had here.

Felicity felt sorrow tightening her chest the more of her clothes she put in her suitcase. Just a few days ago she had unpacked her stuff and those last days she had already been visiting several empty houses, looking for a place to call home the next few years of her life.

Before another wave of tears could flood her eyes a light knock at the door pulled her out of her momentary haze of self-pity.

She took a deep breath before hurrying to the door and opening it.

“You?” she asked, eyes going wide.

Even though he was wearing sweatpants and a loose-fitting shirt, his right leg wrapped up in a plaster that almost reached up to his knee and obviously forced him to use crutches, a band-aid on the right side of his forehead and bruises on the rest of that side of his face, she still recognized him immediately.

“Hey,” he said, a somehow shy smile on his face. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“No!” she almost yelled hastily. “Of course you’re not bothering. How could you be bothering me? And even if you were bothering me I guess I owe you for saving my life this morning which actually means that you should be able to bother me whenever you want to since there wouldn’t be any me to bother without you. That still doesn’t mean that you are bothering me, though. It just means that if you were bothering, you still wouldn’t be bothering because like I told you, you saved my life and-  
And I’m talking so much again which probably isn’t appropriate because if you didn’t die saving my life you’ll probably die listening to me babble which is why I am going to shut up in 3…2…1.”

As always when she needed to interrupt herself mid-ramble, she pressed her lips together firmly and pulled them into her mouth, trying to smile without her lips showing. She probably looked like a toothless grandmother.

She looks up at him nervously, wanting to hear what he had to say. There had to be a reason he came here. Her heartbeat started fastening immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a while. “Would you mind letting me in? I’m still a little sore and would actually like to sit down.”

“Oh, of course. I’m so sorry. Usually I’m not that impolite,” she said with a nervous smile, holding the door open for him. “Just make yourself feel comfortable. Would you like a drink? Or a little snack maybe? Not that I have any snack here, but I could call the room service and order something, or I could-“

“I’m fine. Thank you,” he interrupted her, taking a seat on the couch where she had sat just a few minutes ago.

Slowly she approached him and sat down at the other end of the couch, as far from him as possible in the small hotel room.

She played with the hem of her shirt, unsure of what to do or to say.

When she looked up, intending to only throw him a short glance, she saw him staring at her. Even when their eyes met, he didn’t look away. He kept staring at her unashamedly, taking in the sight of her without an expression on his face, at least there was no expression she could read.

Felicity bit her tongue and tried to think about something else than his intimidating gaze on her skin. Unfortunately, for the first time in what seemed like forever Felicity couldn’t think about anything to think which was why she suddenly heard herself starting to ramble again.

“You know, I should have actually visited you since you were the one who saved me. I already called a flower shop and made sure they’ll send you a bouquet of flowers with a gift card to thank you, but of course I would have shown up personally, too. I planned on visiting you tomorrow or something like that. Or maybe I would have just called and said thank you. As soon as I could bring up the courage to do so. Which would have probably been never so no… you would have probably just gotten the card which is a little rude since you saved my life, but-“

She stopped when a huge grin spread over his face. Felicity felt herself blushing. She could literally feel the heat rising into her head, probably turning her cheeks red. She bit down on her bottom lip, taking in a deep breath.

“I wanted to thank you, though,” she added after a while. “You saved my life. You almost died yourself doing so and I think there are no words in the world that are actually enough to thank you, Mr. Queen.”

“Oh, no!” he said hastily, the huge smile still on his face. “Mr. Queen was my father.”

“Yeah, I know, but he’s dead” Felicity heard herself saying, already slapping herself in her mind for saying that. “I mean he drowned. But you didn’t, which is why you could come into my hotel room and listen me babble which will end in 3…2…1.”

It made her blush even more, but instead of looking at her like she was something awkward like most people had done whenever she had babbled like this, he just smiled at her even more than before.

“I’m Oliver,” he explained to her, putting forth his hand for her to shake.  
She hesitated just shortly before doing so, saying, “Felicity. Smoak.”  
The shake of his hand was strong, but only lasted for a few seconds before he let go of her hand, and she pulled hers back into her lap.

He was still staring at her.

He had told her he loved her, Felicity remembered with a smile. He had told her that, staring at her the same way he was staring at her now.

“Felicity, I was wondering whether you’d like to go on a date with me,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence that had settled between them.

Felicity didn’t know what to say. When she had left the coffee shop this morning, hurrying to her job interview, she had hoped for this or at least for the dating part. She had pictured herself walking back to the coffee shop, meeting him there again and talking about his inappropriate ‘I love you’, laughing about it before they agreed on going on a date.

This felt different, though.

He had been hit by a car because he had wanted to save her from that. This was something really, really serious. He had risked his life for her, and Felicity wasn’t sure she should take his offer on the date.

“Okay, listen,” Oliver pleaded with her, leaning forward and taking her hands in his. “I know this sounds crazy, Felicity, but I know that you are the one for me. I’ve been dreaming about you since I was a little boy who didn’t even know what love was. It took me years to realize that you are the one for me. You are the woman that I love. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life for you and-“

Felicity pulled her hands back from his, sliding back on the couch as far as she could and looked at him doubtingly.

He couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t actually mean what he had just told her.  
Dreaming about her his entire life?

It sounded like a line from a really bad movie in which a boy tried to play his best game, getting some girl into his bed.

Actually, it reminded her a lot of something Barney Stinson of ‘How I met your mother’ would have said. God, she loved that show!

Unfortunately that also meant that Oliver couldn’t be serious.

“Okay, look, I don’t know what game you are playing,” she started, “but I am not interested in being part of it.”

Oliver looked at her for a second questioningly before shaking his head.

“This isn’t a game,” he swore to her sincerely. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I have been dreaming of you all my life. Please. Please give me a chance to convince you of how much I love you.”

Felicity stared at him in disbelieve. How many times had he told her he loved her now? Three times? Four times?

“I’m going to Central City tomorrow.”

Oliver looked like she had just slapped him. His eyes went wide, and his upper body straightened in alarm.

“What do you mean? How can you leave? You still have to go to your job interview at QC.”

Felicity huffed a laugh. “I am like really sure they are not going to choose me for any job after I basically made their future CEO get hit by a car.”

“Well, since I’ve talked to my stepfather about the job offer that was proposed to you by our company, I can guarantee you that we are still planning to hire you.”

“They still want me?” she asked hopefully, eyes going wide in disbelieve.

Oliver nodded. “Of course QC still wants to hire you. You are said to be a genius and probably one of the best IT experts out there in the world. The job interview was actually more like a routine. Walter decided to hire you the moment he saw your application. You can call him at any time to make a new appointment and sign the contract.”

Screeching for happiness, Felicity started jumping up and down on the couch, flinging her arms around Oliver’s neck and hugging him tightly.

She had already lost hope and now! Thank god, Oliver had come here to talk to her. Otherwise she would have left and probably ruined everything!

How could someone who was said to be so smart be so stupid sometimes, she wondered quietly.

She only came back to her senses when Oliver hissed in pain and Felicity immediately slid back to the other end of the couch, slapping her hands in front of her mouth and staring at him with wide eyes.

“I am so sorry,” she then whispered hastily. “I forgot about your broken ribs and everything and I’m so-“

“No reason to apologize,” he interrupted her, smiling through his pain. “But we better stay with softer hugs for the next few weeks. After that you can hug me as tightly as you want.”

Felicity felt herself blushing, but before she could say anything, Oliver asked, “Are your hands okay? I heard you had to get stitches. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Felicity said, waving his concern aside. “Compared to what you had to endure because of your act of heroism, I think I should be more concerned about you.”

“I’m fine,” he told her with a smile that only grew wider when she smiled back at him. “Since there is no need for you to leave Starling now, I suggest that I will take you out to dinner tomorrow. Someone will pick you up at seven. See you, Felicity.”

In a pace that should be unable to achieve with a plastered leg, he got up from the couch, hurried towards the door and was gone before she could even think about saying something in protest.

But who was she to deny the man who had saved her life and managed to give her the job of her dreams despite the injuries she had caused him a date anyway?

 

He still couldn’t believe that all of this was true. Not only had he met Felicity – he was still surprised by how fast his brain and his heart had accepted her name and replaced the name he had given her himself – he actually was going to date her tomorrow.

He had everything worked out. Tommy was going to pick up Felicity at the hotel and bring her a little out of town. At the coast, not far from here, was a beautiful bay with a white sandy beach. It was slightly hidden behind rocks, so there didn’t seem to be too many people knowing about this magic place. There he was going to wait for her with a romantic picnic. He had already told Rasia everything he needed for it. Laurel and Sara were going to help him set everything up since he wasn’t as productive with his leg still in the plaster.

If Oliver had been smart, he surely would have waited for his injuries to heal before asking her out on a date, but he couldn’t have helped himself. He was too impatient, too excited by the idea of finally starting a life with her to not want it to start immediately.

Wasn’t there a movie quote about something like that?

Oliver reached over to his nightstand and grabbed the photo he had stolen from the application Walter had given him. Softly he stroked over the picture of Felicity’s face, smiling at the thought that he might be able to actually touch her face like that in the near future.

He pressed the photo to his heart for a moment before giving it a kiss and putting it back on the nightstand.

He was fairly aware of the fact that he acted like a schoolboy with a crush, but he just couldn’t help himself. He was so close to have Felicity in his life. Finally.

Now all Oliver had to do was to wait for the next twenty-four hours to pass.  
And he hated it already.  
How was he going to survive the next hours without going completely insane?  
Thanks to his broken leg he couldn’t even go out and run, losing a lot of energy to exhaust himself so much that he would fall into a deep sleep right afterwards.

So Oliver grabbed his mobile and called Tommy. He had sent him to go shopping all the stuff they needed for the perfectly romantic date tomorrow. Of course Oliver had suggested letting Sara and Laurel help him. He wasn’t convinced that his best friend was able to handle the responsibility of such a huge order all by himself.

“Ollie, we are not going to get past the shopping any faster if you call us every five minutes,” Tommy groaned as soon as he took the call.

“I just wanted to check if there are any problems,” Oliver answered with gritted teeth.

Of course he knew that his friends were annoyed by his worries about anything going wrong. They just didn’t know what it felt like to have waited for the love of your life to finally entering your life and becoming part of it. Everything needed to be perfect.

Everything needed to be perfect for her, for them.

“There are no problems,” Tommy explained with a sigh. “Ollie, just lean back and relax. We have everything covered and-“

Oliver could hear some noises before Sara finished Tommy’s sentence, “And even if we hadn’t everything covered, we still wouldn’t call you because you are being a giant pain in the ass with this and-“

Again he heard some noises before Laurel said, “Ollie, everything is alright over here. Tommy and Sara are just in a bed temper because they couldn’t agree on which torches to buy. Trust me, I am going to keep an eye on both of them and make sure that everything will be exactly as you have planned it out. And now rest. I’ll call you if there is something you can do.”

She hang up, and Oliver stared at his mobile for a while before putting it away on his nightstand and shifting deeper into the pillows.

Staring at the ceiling, he tried to imagine how the date was going to go. They were going to eat and talk, getting to know each other even better than he already knew her. When the sun was going to sink, he would suggest to take a walk at the beach-

He looked down at his leg with a groan. Of course he wasn’t going to take a walk at the beach with that plaster.

So they were going to stay on the blanket, watching the sun go down from there. Maybe he was going to take her hand and hold it, interlacing their fingers. He was going to tell her everything about his dreams and how she had made him fall in love with her. And Felicity would hesitate before realizing that he was serious about this and believing him.

They would spend the evening on the beach, waiting till the night to come before he was going to take her home in the limousine, maybe kissing her goodnight before she was going to leave him.

“You know, you’re probably the only person in the world who can’t stop smiling after being hit by a car,” Thea said, slowly approaching him and sitting down on the edge of her brother’s bed, eying him up worriedly.

“I am probably the only person in the world who knows he has found the love of his life before he met her for the first time,” Oliver grinned back at her.

Thea rolled her eyes, but smiled none the less. “So you’re still sure it’s her?”

“Yupp,” he agreed with a nod, grinning happily.

“So then… Everything worked out for tomorrow?”

Oliver nodded again and told her the plan.

“I didn’t know there was an actual romantic hidden inside of you,” she teased him. “So… what are you going to wear, hm? With that thing on your leg I guess the selection is limited? Let me help you.”

Clapping her hands excitedly, Thea jumped from the bed and made her way to her brother’s closet, searching for something to wear.

Oliver just sighed softly and watched his sister. He probably would have asked her to help him choose something anyway. She might be a little over the top sometimes, but it was never wrong to have a female opinion on the wardrobe for a first date.

Thea was murmuring to herself, barely audible for Oliver, who felt the effect of the pain killers he had taken a few minutes ago slowly lulling his body. His eyes drifted closed and rather sooner than later he fell asleep without his sister noticing it.

 

_He was surprised to find himself sitting on the same couch he had sat on a few hours ago, being in the same hotel room he had been in a few hours ago, staring at the same girl he had been staring at a few hours ago._

_Felicity had her back turned towards him. Her upper body was bent over the edge of the bed, her blond hair falling over her right shoulder, her arms rummaging around in her suitcase. Every now and then she grabbed a piece of clothing out of the suitcase and threw it carelessly behind her._

_He tried to get up from his spot on the couch, but found that his leg was still in a plaster and his crutches weren’t here. So he leaned back with a sigh and just watched her._

_Oliver had to bite his tongue and mobilize every bit of self-control he had to not constantly stare at her ass that was pushed back and probably would have caught everyone’s eyes immediately. But he reminded himself that he already knew a lot about her while she knew nothing about him and staring at her when she thought to be unseen just didn’t feel right._

_So he focused on her neck instead. She had a beautiful, long neck he hoped to be able to kiss in the near future. He desired to slide his lips over her soft skin, searching for her pulse point to suck on it before letting his tongue travel above the skin there, inhaling the smell of her body meanwhile._

_When Felicity suddenly straightened and hurried to stand in front of the mirror and holding a dress to her body to see how it would look like when she wore it he watched her closely. He had seen his sister doing this over and over again._

_She was actually able to do it for hours. And if he spent the next hours watching Felicity doing this, then this was going to be a great dream._

_Oliver eyed up the dress she held in front of her tiny figure. The hem ended a little above her knees. It was tight-fitting with a v-cut neckline and thin straps. Before he got the chance to find out whether he liked the dress she had moved her lips, saying something he couldn’t hear, and had already thrown the dress to the floor where a pool of clothes had already began to build._

_She went back to her suitcase, searching some more before returning to the mirror again. This time it was a sleeveless dress with a slightly deeper v-neck. It had a peplum – how the hell had Thea made him remember something like that?! – and it was red._

_“Oh please!” he groaned when she looked at herself in admiration, a smile forming on her lips. “You are going to make me look like an idiot if you are wearing that!”_

_Thea had been right. With his leg in the plaster there wasn’t much he could wear and even new clothes weren’t going to change anything about that. Knowing that Felicity was going to look like a goddess wasn’t going to make it any easier for him to convince her of how much he loved her._

_If there had been no limits to his clothing he would have chosen a light suite so when they would have walked along the beach he would’ve rolled up the pants and would have walked through the water, holding her hand._

_Now he would probably have to wear shorts and a Henley or something – because how ridiculous was a formal dress shirt to shorts?!_

_Looking at Felicity, still holding her dress to her body, he knew that he was going to disappoint her. She was expecting something glamorous as every woman deserved on a first date. And he would give her that in everything but his clothes._

_“Please, Felicity, pick something else!” he pleaded with her, although he knew that she couldn’t hear him._

_The more surprised he was when suddenly a frown formed on her face. She eyed up herself in the mirror once more, sighed in frustration and babbled something before letting the dress sink to the other discarded clothes to the floor._

_Smiling he whispered, “Thank you.”_


	4. Is this even real?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I kind of promised that this chapter will give the answers to all the questions that may have popped up while reading the first chapters, but then I got carried away writing this chapter. Everything that happens in this chapter had been supposed to be a short introduction for the date and then it turned into an own plot line.  
> So the good news: additional to the planned five chapters will be a sixth now that this chapter had developed to what it has become.  
> The bad news: you will have to wait one more chapter to get your answers.

Felicity was pacing back and forth in the small hotel room.

Of course she had been dressed and ready to go on her date way too soon which had caused her to sit down on the small couch, tapping her foot nervously, biting down on her bottom lip, so she had to redo her lipstick twice. She had been able to sit like that for like three minutes before she had gotten up and started pacing.

If she wasn’t going to be picked up soon, she’d be sweaty and her hair and make-up ruined before the date would have started.

Felicity had spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out what to think about this date.  
She had actually made a pro and con list about it that was still lying on the couch where she had left it after reading it for like a hundred times.

Never leaving her path from one side of the room back to the other, she recalled all of the pros and cons back into her memory.

On the pro side of dating Oliver Queen:  
\- he had told her he loved her already  
\- he was probably the hottest person on earth  
\- he had thrown himself in front of a car for her  
\- he had saved her from making what would have been the worst mistake of her life, leaving Starling City

On the con side of dating Oliver Queen:  
\- he was said to be a playboy  
\- he was a worldwide known person who was followed by paparazzi more often than not  
\- he was her future boss  
\- he had told her he had been dreaming about her his entire life which had to mean that he was actually crazy

Four on the pro side versus four on the con side – not helpful.

Sighing, Felicity stopped in the middle of the room.

Those last days her life had felt like a roller coaster and she had the certain feeling that this wasn’t going to change that soon.

Before she could talk herself into another panic attack, a light knock at the door told her that it was finally time for her date.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her purse and went to open the door.

“Wow!” the dark haired man in front of the door said, mouth hanging slightly open while he stared at her with wide eyes. “You are actually real.”

Felicity frowned confused, but before she could ask what he meant with that, the stranger added, “I’m sorry. It’s just… I’ve heard so much about you, and I was kind of sure Oliver was hallucinating you, and I wasn’t going to find anyone in this hotel room. But here you are. So I guess I was wrong. I’m Tommy by the way. I’m here to take you to your date. Ready?”

Felicity bit her bottom lip.  
Was she ready? No.  
Did she have a choice? Probably not.

“Sure,” she answered therefore, taking a step forward and closing the door to her room behind her. She hesitated before looking up to her driver. “Tommy, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said with a bright smile. “You want to know something about Oliver, I’m your guy. I know everything about him. Is he an idiot? Yes. Are you going to regret dating that guy? Probably. Should that hold you back? Nope.”

Felicity stared at him for a second, unsure of what to think about that. For someone who introduced himself as a best friend, he wasn’t really making her want to date Oliver.  
She decided to smile, shaking her head and take his word as teasing.

“No, what I wanted to ask was whether I look okay,” she said shyly, feeling herself blushing. “I mean… Oliver didn’t really say what we are going to go, so I didn’t know what to wear and-“

Tommy put a hand to her shoulder, calming her ramble and smiling at her.

“You look really beautiful, and even if you didn’t, Oliver is so excited, and he loves you so much he’d still think you were the most beautiful woman in the world. There is no reason for you to be nervous,” he said, waiting for her to smile before he nodded towards the elevator. “Come on, let’s go before Oliver freaks out even more.”

There it was again. Oliver loved her.

Felicity still didn’t know what to think about this. He couldn’t love her. How could he love her? He didn’t even know her. And yet he had told her he loved her several times, and now his friend had said the same thing.

How was she going to act around him this evening?

“So he’s nervous?” Felicity asked while they waited for the elevator.

Tommy huffed a laugh. “Nervous? I think Oliver was nervous the first day he worked at QC or when he had to tell his mother that he had crashed the Porsche when he was drunk. Tonight Oliver is freaking out, going crazy or having heart attacks. You can choose. Everything describes his state very well.”

Felicity nodded. So he was nervous. She was nervous, too. This was going to be… interesting.

Tommy led her to a cabriolet, opening the door to the passenger seat for her before going around to the other side and sitting down on the driving seat. He winked at her before starting the car and driving them.

Felicity leaned back and tried to relax as much as her wildly pounding heart actually let her do that. She felt her hands shaking and entwined her fingers, resting them in her lap. Taking deep breaths she tried to calm herself down.

How the hell could she be that nervous? She barely knew Oliver and even if he seemed like a perfect match with his heroic attitude, his cute smile and the abs that were actually visible under the fabric of his shirt…

“I know,” Tommy said suddenly. “Every girl falls in love with his abs. I can’t even count how many girls have asked him to let them stroke his abs, totally strangers approaching us and asking that.”

When Felicity looked at him confused, he blinked once more, and Felicity bit her lip and blushed, realizing that she had babbled out once more. She could only hope for a slightly better control on her mouth for the rest of the evening.

But she was already sure that hoping this was hopeless.

Sighing, she turned her head to look at the landscape ahead of them and felt her heartbeat fasten once again.

They must have left Starling City behind them. They drove along the coast, the ocean to their left and nothing but beautiful green scenery to their right. It was perfectly romantic.

Or perfect to kill someone, a little voice in the back of her mind shouted, but Felicity refused to listen to that little voice, concentrating on imagining where Tommy was going to take her and what Oliver might have planned out for their evening.

They drove for another five minutes before Tommy pulled the car to the side and stopped it.

Felicity looked around but couldn’t find anything but more green landscape and the ocean that was almost hidden behind rocks.

“What-?” Felicity asked, but Tommy had gotten out of the car already, holding her door open and offering her a hand.

Hesitantly she put her hand in his and let him help out of the car.

“Where-“ she started again, but Tommy shook his head and turned her around on her shoulder so he stood behind her. His right arm lifted, pointing to a small gap between two stones in front of them.

“You see that?”

Felicity nodded, still not understanding.

“There is a small path between the rocks. You might have to climb a little, so I suggest you take off your shoes. You will get to a hidden bay behind those rocks. There are torches that lead you the way to Oliver. You can’t miss it, but I’ll send Oliver a message, so he will come looking for you if it takes too long.”

Tommy grinned at her widely while Felicity tried to find out whether he was joking or not - because seriously?!

They were in the middle of nowhere, and she was supposed to climb between those rocks to some place she couldn’t see and didn’t know? Trusting a complete stranger to tell her the truth and not bully her like those terrible people in high school?

Tommy seemed to sense her insecurities because he again turned her around on her shoulders and sighed, “Listen, I know this sounds crazy. I warned Oliver that this might happen, but he wanted to show you this place. He loves it there and he thinks it holds some kind of magic, but I can call him so he can assure you of this.”

Felicity bit her bottom lip, glancing back at where she was supposed to go. This sounded crazy, but Oliver seemed to be crazy. He had thrown himself in front of a car for her. Considering he had actually risked his life for her, Felicity could and should take the risk. So with a sigh she shook her head.

She hold her purse out to Tommy who took it from her while Felicity took of her blazer, putting it in the back of the car and then held on to the door of the car to steady herself while taking off her high heels.

When her bare feet made contact with the warm asphalt, she once again wondered if this was some stupid game they were playing before she lifted her shoes in one hand, reaching the other out to take back her purse and turned around without another word, hurrying to the rocks before Tommy could say anything else or she could change her mind about this.

Tommy had been right. There was a small path between the rocks. She still had to climb a little, holding onto the rocks to both of her sides so she wouldn’t fall. It was kind of ridiculous, given that she couldn’t even see where she was going because the rocks were too high for her to look over them.

She must have climbed several minutes already when she stopped and actually asked herself how Oliver had been able to make it to their reputed date if his leg was still in a plaster.

Sighing, Felicity leaned against one of the rocks, closing her eyes and trying to hold back the tears that she could already feel forming in her eyes. Of course this was a joke. Oliver couldn’t have climbed through the rocks to get to that bay, if there even was a bay. Oliver and Tommy had all of this planned out and were now sitting somewhere, silently laughing about her stupidity. And the job probably wasn’t hers either which was why the guy she had talked to on the telephone this morning had given her an appointment three days from now. Because she would have known that this was a joke if she had been able to talk to someone from QC before this evening.

“You’re an idiot, Felicity,” she whispered to herself before opening her eyes again and wiping away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “And now it’s time to go to Central City.”

Just when she was about to turn around and leave, she caught a flickering from the corner of her eye and stopped, staring at the spot on the rock where the light danced like the flame of a candle.

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip, trying to figure out what to do. She didn’t want to lose the last bit of pride she had, running after a dream that was long lost. But she had never been the kind of person to give up before the last bit of hope was lost, either.

So Felicity took a few steps, looking around to find out where the lights came from. When she turned around the corner and saw what had caused the light on the rock tears started forming in her eyes once again.

This time it was for a completely different reason, though.

 

“So…” Sara said, grinning widely. “Everything’s prepared. I guess it’s time for Laurel and me to leave before Tommy drops Reverie off.”

“Felicity” Oliver reminded her with an intense look before smiling. “Thank you for your help.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?” Laurel asked with a bright smile that matched her sister’s before she leaned down and pressed a kiss to Oliver’s cheek. “Good luck with your girl, Ollie.”

“Thank you,” Oliver repeated while Sara kissed his other cheek. “Did you guys remember to tell Tommy to not just drop Felicity here, but to-“

“Take her to the torches, so she won’t worry that this might be a joke,” the sisters finished his sentence in chorus and rolled their eyes. “Of course.”

“Hey, I’m just nervous!” Oliver shouted after them, but his friends were leaving already.

Sighing, he leaned back in the pillows and looked around to take in the sight of everything Laurel, Sara and he had created for the most important evening in his life.

He was lying on the soft mattresses under the large cream-colored pavilion, surrounded by a bunch of pillows. There were all kind of different foods placed on a small table to his side. Rasia had put a lot of work in making sure everything was exactly how he had wanted it which was why he had bought her a bouquet of flowers already. He had buried an ice bucket into the warm white sand to keep the champagne cool. In a small box were several other drinks so they would have everything they might need tonight.

Once again Oliver sighed, trying to relax as far as his wildly pounding heart allowed this. He was almost unable to breathe since he felt a huge lump in his throat.

He knew that he kind of looked like an idiot with the dark grey shorts and the crème-colored henley that matched the color of the pavilion.

All night he had been watching Felicity running around in her hotel room, ravaging everything while searching for the perfect dress. She had tried every piece of clothing from her suitcase, dismissing every single one of them before throwing them on the floor, choosing a different piece, just to dismiss this, too, and go back to one of the ones she had tried before.

At the end she had picked the red dress he had watched her try at the beginning of his dream. So he was definitely going to look like an idiot next to her. Well, Oliver was willing to take a lot more than that if that meant he was going to spend this evening and hopefully the rest of his life with her by his side.

The beeping of his mobile told him that he had received a message. Smiling he read Tommy’s words, _Your girl is on her way. And she looks fabulous. Good luck, bro._

Oliver felt his heartbeat fasten.

This was it.  
This was the most important moment of his life.

He tried to straighten up as far as his leg let him. Excitedly he turned his head to stare at the point between the rocks where Felicity should turn up any second.

Eighty-four hours ago it had seemed impossible to have Felicity with him. He had imagined to be forced to spend his life alone because he had been sure that if he couldn’t have Felicity then he didn’t want any woman in his life, at least not romantically.

These last years he had always been sure of this one truth in his life – Felicity or no one.  
There hadn’t been a single day that he could have pictured anyone other than Felicity standing next to him all his life.

He could see her accompanying him to those fancy dinners he had to attend since he had taken the position in QC.  
He could picture her standing next to him on Christmas when they decorated the tree and opened their presents.  
He could imagine her lying next to him in his bed, still asleep while he watched her.  
She was going to stand next to him at the altar, vowing to love him for the rest of their lives.  
They were going to have lots of kids, at least a baseball team of little Felicitys.

Nervously he glanced at his watch. Felicity had been supposed to be here already. The path through the stones might be a little tiring, but even if she had to take off her shoes and needed a little bit longer because she was shorter than Oliver himself or Tommy or Laurel, probably even Sara she should be here by now.

Gritting his teeth Oliver got up on his feet – or rather foot – and hopped a few times till he was at the beginning of the espalier of torched that led from the pavilion to the rocks and the other way around.

Unfortunately, there was a corner right where the rocks began, so he couldn’t see whether Felicity was nearing or not.

What if she had tripped and fell?

No, Oliver calmed himself. Tommy would have called him if anything had happened. He knew how much his wellbeing depended on Felicity. Tommy would have called him even before he would have called an ambulance.

Just when Oliver wanted to hop further towards the rocks, he saw a movement.

As soon as his eyes took in the sight of her, his brain refused to continue working, and his heart stopped beating for a long, long moment before it started pounding once more. Those last hours since he had met her in the coffee shop that was what his heart had done a thousand times. It had stopped beating before starting to pound wildly against his ribcage.

Felicity wore her blond hair down, so the soft waves fell down her shoulder and reached to her breasts. She carried her shoes in one hand, a little purse in the other. To his surprise she didn’t wear the dress he had been sure she had picked at the end of his night. Instead she wore a different red dress. The fabric wrapped tightly around her upper body. There was a cutout to both sides of her waist before the skirt of the dress fell more loosely down to the mid of her thigh.

His eyes traveled from her red-colored toe nails up to her beautiful red dress till they reached her face. Her red lips were slightly parted, her cheeks flushed, and tears glistened in her eyes.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked worriedly, hopping farther to her while she approached him as well, so they met in the middle of the espalier.

When they stopped right in front of each other, Oliver raised his hands to cup her face, stroking the soft skin that covered her cheekbones as she relaxed into his touch with a deep sigh.

“You’re here,” she whispered with another sigh, closing her eyes for a few seconds before looking back up at him again.

Oliver frowned in confusion. “Of course I’m here. I invited you, Felicity. Where else would I be?”

Oliver watched as she looked up at him. A tear left her eye and rolled down her cheek. Slowly Oliver lowered his face, giving her the opportunity to pull away. When she didn’t he grazed his lips over her skin softly, kissing the tear away. He let his lips linger on her skin for a few seconds, inhaling the sweet smell of her skin before pulling away and watching her closely as she looked up at him in disbelieve.

Shouldn’t that be the expression in his eyes while watching her? All his life he had dreamed about her, and now she was finally standing in front him, beautiful as ever. He was able to talk to her and touch her.

“Hi,” she whispered, a slight smile lightening her face.

“Hey,” Oliver smiled back, once again stroking her cheeks with his thumbs.

Felicity was the most beautiful woman Oliver had ever seen. Especially now with the golden sunlight on her face and her hair framing her face like a halo she looked like an angel, his own personal angel.

“I really thought you and your friend were making fun of me with this evening.”

Again Oliver frowned, lifting his gaze to the rocks behind her before locking eyes with her again.

“Didn’t Tommy tell you about the bay?”

“He did,” Felicity chuckled. “But honestly? I climbed through those rocks, following the path for what felt like forever, and all I could picture was your friend and you sitting in some dark room and laughing about my naivety.”

“Tommy didn’t guide you through the path?”

Felicity shook her head. “No. He dropped me at the side of the street and told me where to go. I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t obviously, so I went because you threw yourself in front of a car for me. The least I could do was climbing some rocks. But then you weren’t there, and there didn’t seem to be an end, and I figured that you could have never made it through that with your leg in the plaster, and then I thought that you had to be kidding me, so I stopped and actually planned on walking back to the hotel and move to Central City because if this had been a prank than, so had been the job, I thought, and-”

“And all of that just because Tommy didn’t guide you here,” Oliver sighed and stared at her blankly, subconsciously gritting his teeth and knitting his eyebrows.

“I guess he wasn’t supposed to do that?” Felicity asked quietly.

“No,” Oliver answered through gritted teeth. “He was actually supposed to take you to the espalier, so you didn’t have to worry because I have to admit the path through the rocks does not actually look like it leads to somewhere romantic.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Felicity chuckled. “But at least I’m here now.”

“Yes,” Oliver agreed without hesitation, sliding his thumb above her bottom lip to release it since Felicity had bitten down on it. “You’re here now.”

Finally, he added in his mind before leading her to the pavilion.


	5. One last doubt

As the sun slowly disappeared below the horizon, golden rays of sunlight danced on the surface of the sea and lightened up the bay. The soft sounds of the waves served as low background music, rhythmically interrupting the comfortable silence that had settled over the bay.

Felicity sipped at her champagne, enjoying the prickling feeling of the delicious liquid on her tongue while keeping her eyes on the play of lights that were created by the setting sun. She needed to bite her bottom lip and force herself to keep staring at the horizon, so she didn’t stare at Oliver constantly.

Every now and then she allowed herself to flash him a glance. But even as she kept her eyes on the ocean she could see him from the corner of her eyes as he was lying next to her on the mattresses under the pavilion. He seemed to be relaxed as he was propped up onto one elbow, lying on his side, eyes focused on the sunset.

Just when she thought about asking him something to end the silence and actually get to know him like she was supposed to on their date, she saw a small wrinkle form on his forehead, right between his eyebrows. It might me barely visible, but it was there.

“Are you still thinking about what you do to Tommy for not leading me to the bay?”

Oliver turned his head immediately, looking at her with a deadly serious expression in his eyes when he answered, “Right now I am torn between beating him to death and putting a handful of arrows through his chest.”

“So you’re an archer?” Felicity asked.

“No, but I am willing to learn how to shoot arrows just so I can put some through Tommy for failing this evening.”

Felicity smiled softly before placing her glass to the side and moving closer to Oliver. She framed his face with her hands, softly stroking the wrinkle with her thumbs until it disappeared. She then pressed a kiss to the spot where it had been seconds ago and let her hands slide down his cheeks before putting them into her lap.

“Maybe you should use your time trying to get to know me better instead of thinking about your friend.”

Oliver looked at her blankly for a second before lifting one of her hands to his lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“You’re right,” he then answered. “So… How about a little snack to strengthen us for the interrogation?”

“Interrogation?” she laughed while Oliver pulled the little table with the food closer to them. “I thought we were just having a talk… like fun you know. An interrogation sounds so serious. I feel a little pressured.”

“Oh, you don’t have anything to fear, Felicity,” Oliver smiled. “You will interrogate me to find out how serious I am about all of this. About us. Besides I already know almost everything about you so…”

“I am highly sure that you don’t know almost everything about me,” Felicity answered.

“Sounds like a challenge to me,” Oliver smirked before offering her a muffin. “This is a peanut butter muffin. It’s one of Rasia’s super-secret family recipes. You will love it.”

Felicity stared at the muffin in Oliver’s outstretched hand for a short moment before she looked up at him and shrugged her shoulders.

“Looks like you’ve already lost,” she answered and smiled when Oliver responded with a questioning gaze. “I’m allergic to nuts. I ate a brownie once and ended up in the hospital. So no peanut butter muffin for me unless you are planning on getting me killed after all.”

Oliver didn’t hesitate and didn’t look away as he simply threw the muffin behind him where it landed in the sand. While a few gulls were already contending with each other for the discarded muffin, Oliver let the other peanut butter muffins follow, drawing more gulls.

“What are you doing?” Felicity asked shocked. “You don’t have to throw them away. You can still eat them.”

“Felicity, I intend to kiss you goodnight at the end of our date. That means I won’t risk you getting an anaphylactic shock from kissing me,” he explained very seriously before holding up a plate with wraps. “Curried turkey wraps. One more of Rasia’s delicious family recipes. No nuts.”

Felicity stared at him for a second, letting his words sink in before she nodded and took the wrap he had offered her and took a bite.

“It’s delicious,” she said, munching. “I really need the recipe.”

“Can I take that as a proposal because I’m totally gonna say yes,” Oliver responded between two bites and smiled in amusement when he saw her questioning face. “Those are family recipes, Felicity. You will have to become a Queen to get them.”

“I am the queen of computers. Does that not count for anything?” she asked, cocking her head. She pushed her bottom lip forward and fluttered her eyelashes. “Please?”

Oliver smiled at her amusedly. “You will have to negotiate this with Rasia, but I might put in a good word for you to her. Because it’s you,” he added, tipping the tip of her nose with his index finger.

Felicity felt herself blushing and her heartbeat fastening. She didn’t know how Oliver did this, but she felt so comfortable with him. Even that short touch of her nose had sent shivers down her skin and had left a prickling on her heart as the champagne had left on her tongue.

If she didn’t know herself better than that, she could actually start to believe that she was falling in love with him. But that wasn’t possible. She still didn’t know him at all.

“So…” Oliver said after a while, pulling her back from her thoughts. “I think there was a challenge about me knowing almost everything about you. I bet I get nine out of ten questions about you right. Since I already messed up with the peanut butter muffin there are still nine questions left.”

“And how do you think you will answer them correctly?” Felicity asked doubtingly.

Oliver looked at her like he didn’t understand. His eyes never left her face as he looked her over. Felicity felt the need to look away, but kept her eyes straight at his face, not daring to look away.

“Felicity, I told you that I have been dreaming of you ever since I am a little boy. I was thirteen when it started, and I have been dreaming of you every night since then. The only exceptions were the few days before we met. That’s when the dreams stopped and-“

“Oliver, stop that!” she interrupted him, not caring if she sound rudely. “Just stop!”

Oliver looked at her with wide eyes. His lips were slightly opened, still formed to say something, but he shut his mouth and just looked at her, waiting for her to say something.

But Felicity didn’t know what to say. What was she supposed to say other than that he was crazy? He had to be crazy if he actually thought that what he’d been saying was true.

Nobody dreamt of a stranger for all his life and even if they did they weren’t happy about it. They went to a psychiatrist to get rid of those dreams.

“Okay, listen,” Felicity said after a while. “You don’t just dream of a stranger. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve probably seen me once in your childhood and you don’t remember that because it was just a short moment. But your subconscious mind remembers it and brings it up in your dreams.”

Oliver kept staring at her, and Felicity stared back.

Felicity had always been a girl of science. She trusted facts and dates, knew a lot of them and knew how to interpret them. She believed in a God who had initiated the creation of this world and everything that was in it. But from that moment on the world had gotten a movement of its own. This movement could be described by facts and dates.

That was what Felicity believed in. Always had. Always would.

And Oliver’s story just didn’t fit into this. There was no logical explanation for what he had told her which could only mean that he was lying or at least not telling the whole truth.

Which was probably the same, but sounded better, Felicity thought.

She looked towards the sunset and breathed in the salty air.

Felicity couldn’t say what she had hoped to earn from this evening. She didn’t know what she had expected to happen. She couldn’t even remember why she had agreed to go on this date in the very first place.

All she knew was that she had made a mistake. Coming here had been a mistake. Going on a date with her future boss had been a mistake. Trusting the hope that he had been saying the truth when he had told her he loved her had been a mistake.

Oliver Queen was exactly what all those glamour gossip magazines had always written about him. He was a player who liked to chase girls and find creative ways to get them into his bed. And even if he had a good heart that had been proven by his heroic rescue of her, he was still that guy the magazines had pictured him to be.

And Felicity was done with that. She might not be the most self-confident woman in the word, but at least she had too much pride to be the protagonist in this prank Oliver had been playing on her, probably with the help of Tommy.

“Felicity-“

“You know, I should go,” she said hastily, grabbing her purse and her shoes and moved to stand up and run away as fast as possible. With the plaster on his leg she might have a chance of actually being able to run away from him.

She stood on her feet, already moving away from him, from this mistake when she heard him speak.

“Four years ago your life changed. It changed so much that you changed.”

Felicity turned around, looking at him with wide eyes and slightly opened lips.

“What?”

 

He could see that he was about to lose her all over again. She was about to leave and there was barely anything he could think of saying since his whole body went into panic mode.

Oliver couldn’t lose her. Not again. Those last days he had been on the edge of losing her so often, he couldn’t take it anymore. He’d do anything to make sure she was staying right here with him.

“Four years ago your life changed. It changed so much that you changed.”

He had said the first thing that had come into his mind.

Felicity stood still, slowly turning around and staring at him with wide eyes and opened lips, shocked about what he had said. At least he had her attention again, Oliver thought, taking in a deep breath.

“Four year ago in summer something happened to you. I don’t know what it was, but it made you very sad. You were crying a lot those days, locking yourself in your room and eating ice cream. It took you almost two weeks to put yourself together, and you did so by becoming darker and darker, becoming a Goth. One year, eight months and three weeks later something else must have happened because you threw away all of your dark clothes and dyed you hair blonde.”

He had spent months, thinking about what had caused that development.

He had imagined so many different scenarios, trying to figure out how the happy, giggly girl she had been all her life could suddenly become a Goth, only to become a different version of that former happy girl again.

Something had told him that it had been something about her family, but maybe his own fate had let him to that believe. Shortly after her change had begun, he had lost his father, and he would have died himself if it hadn’t been for her.

“It took you a little more than one-and-a-half year for you to first become a Goth and then turn into a happy ray of sunshine, and I’d like to know why this happened, and how you managed to do this,” he said calmly. “Please.”

“How-“ Felicity began, shaking her head in disbelieve while looking down on him. “How do you know that?”

Oliver let out a breath that sounded half like a sigh and half like a laugh as he felt a lump in his throat and actual tears in his eyes.

“I love you, Felicity,” he said after a while. “I love you because you have been with me for the last thirteen years, whenever I have closed my eyes. I have seen you grow up and change and becoming this smart, honorable, beautiful woman you are today. I know a lot about you, Felicity, but there are still some things I don’t know about you. That is why I want to get to know you even better than I already do. I want to know everything there is to know about you. Please.”

He felt himself on the edge of begging. If she was still going to leave, he was actually going to kneel here in front of her, take her hands and beg her to tell him more about her. He wanted to know all the little details missing of what there was to know about her. Details like how she decided what to wear, or what things made her roll her eyes, or how she sounded when she mumbled in her sleep.

Felicity still stood in front of him, staring at him like he was an alien. He could almost see the thoughts crossing her mind.

Was he serious?  
How could he know about all of this?  
Did he actually mean it?  
How could she make sure he wasn’t kidding?

It was the last thought she seemed to be most interested in. She narrowed her eyes, looking at him in doubt before she spoke tensely, “Nine out of ten?”

He nodded. “Nine out of ten. I already gambled away the one I was allowed to answer wrong, so now it’s nine out of nine.”

Felicity nodded, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and bit her bottom lip, thinking about questions to ask.

“My birth date?” she began.

Oliver needed to hold himself back to not roll with his eyes. “May 31,1989. I could have read that in your application. Please ask harder questions.”

Felicity narrowed her eyes even more at his request, but Oliver didn’t look away. She really needed to ask harder questions when she wanted to test him.

“My favorite ice cream?”

“Mint chocolate chip. Still not hard enough.”

He could see Felicity try to think about a harder question. She had seven left to make sure he really knew her as much as she claimed to do.

“Am I a morning person or a night owl?”

Oliver thought about it for half a second, recalling his memories of her before answering, “You usually have a strict rhythm of sleep, but whenever it gets interrupted, it’s not that hard for you to be a night owl, but you are not a morning person. You need at least one cup of coffee before someone can talk to you after waking up.”

The expression in Felicity’s face changed. She was obviously surprised by how much he knew about her. This seemed to have been something not a lot of people knew about her. Oliver was glad to have read all her faces right up to this moments.

There were still six questions left, he remembered.

“Am I closer to my Mom or to my Dad?”

“Your Mom,” he answered firmly. “You don’t have the best relationship to her, but at least she calls once in a while. Or you call her. Your father however seems to be out of the picture.”

Felicity took in a deep breath, frowning even more than before while simultaneously thinking harder about a question to ask.

“When I was a kid, my family and I, where did we live? An apartment or a house?”

“You’ve been living in a trailer at least since you’ve become nine years old. I don’t know what had happened before that because I have started dreaming about you when I have been thirteen so…”

Felicity nodded shortly. Four questions left.

“My favorite book?”

“Anna Karenina,” he answered without hesitation. “You have read it several times over the years. The first time had been when you have been twelve, I think. I am still impressed by the way. Twelve years old and reading such a serious book.”

He could see her doubts falter. She uncrossed her arms in front of her chest, letting them hang to both sides of her body. Felicity took some deep breaths while thinking about more questions to ask, harder questions to ask.

“Am I a cat person, a dog person or both?”

Oliver thought about it shortly before answering, “I think you prefer dogs. I saw you desiring some dogs as a child. Shortly after that you found a cat and brought it home, but your mother didn’t allow you to keep it, so you had to abandon it, but you still looked out for it, making sure it wasn’t going to starve. I still think you are more of a dog person, though. I can’t really tell why, but… I just know.”

She gulped. Her legs were shaking, but she kept standing there, staring at him.

“My favorite _Doctor Who_ actor?”

“That’s a trick question. According to the fact that you have the DVDs to every season and watch all of them with the same frequency I’d say you like all of them the same.”

One more question. She must have had the same thought because suddenly her legs weren’t carrying her anymore. Instead she kneeled next to him, staring at him in disbelieve.

Oliver’s heart pounded like crazy. He couldn’t ruin this now. He had to answer that last question rightly, and he could only hope for a question he was able to answer.

“I can’t think about a ninth question to ask,” Felicity whispered after a while, biting down on her bottom lip.

Oliver smiled softly, brushing a strand of her hair from her face to tug it behind her ear.

“Why don’t you ask me why I am so sure that I love you?”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes, nodding slightly to tell him she was okay with that being the last of her ten questions.

“I love you because you are the woman I have been watching developing from a shiny little girl to a Goth girl and back to the girl you are today. And you still seem happy and you are so smart and so different from every woman I have ever met. I can guarantee you, Felicity, that I really, really love you.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks now, and he hurried to wipe them away.

“Please don’t cry, Felicity,” he asked her in a whisper.

She sobbed slightly before taking in a deep breath and wiping over the same spots he had touched, drying her skin there.

“You’ve really been dreaming about me?” she asked then.

Oliver nodded, taking her right hand and putting it to his heart.

“Yes, I have been dreaming about you all those years. I have seen you growing up and changing and becoming the woman you are today. I have never expected for you to actually appear in Starling City and for the two of us to meet, but I am so happy we met because I really believe that we are meant to be. We are soulmates, Felicity.”

He could feel her fingers spreading on his chest like they wanted to touch as much of him as possible. She could certainly feel his heartbeat under her palm.

Felicity cocked her head, looking at him. There were still tears in her eyes, but they had stopped dropping. She moved closer to him. Sitting right next to his chest, she lay her free hand on his that was still holding her other hand to his heart and Oliver put his free hand on hers, so both of their hands were lying on his heart now. Slowly Oliver sat up, bringing their bodies even closer to each other's. He could hear her heartbeat fastening.

She was even more beautiful than he had ever seen her. The golden light on her face, the expression in her eyes, the slight smile on her red lips, it all made her look even more beautiful.

“If we are soulmates,” she whispered “,then why didn’t I dream of you? Why was it just me?”

It was one of the questions Oliver had asked himself over and over again ever since he had met her. He had always assumed that the girl of his dreams dreamt about him the same way he had about her. But when he had seen that Felicity hadn’t recognized him, he had realized that he had been the only one with the privilege of dreaming of the love of his life.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I have a theory.”

He looked at her, asking for permission to tell her about it. He didn’t want her to believe that he was trying to talk her into something. If she had a theory that would probably be scientifically sound, he wasn’t going to take that away from her by telling her something that had been made out by a feeling in his gut.

But Felicity smiled and gave him a slight nod, giving her permission for him to go on.

“When I was twelve I started to change. My mother used to say that I was a sweet little boy until I was twelve and all the hype about my family and all the money we had, started changing me. She said I tended to become one of those spoilt little brats who would later drop out of college, live from their parents’ money and didn’t care for anyone but theirselves.  
Then I started dreaming about you. I would lie if I said that I have been delighted about that from the start. For a teenager it was really annoying to be honest. But those dreams wouldn’t stop, and I made my peace with them, and at some point I enjoyed watching you. I could never hear your voice or touch you or anything. I just got to watch you, you know?”

Felicity nodded, never taking her eyes from his.

“When I was sixteen,” he continued, “I realized that I really liked you. You were too young at that point for me to fall in love with you, but I felt a connection to you. And I knew that I wanted to make you proud. I remember thinking that if I ever met you, I wanted you to be proud of who I was and what I had achieved. So I started studying like the nerds I had made fun of before. I finished high school with good grades and started college to learn everything to be able to take my father’s place in the company one day.  
I believe that if I didn’t have those dreams during my youth, I would have turned out to be a completely different person. And you wouldn’t have liked that person, Felicity. So I needed those dreams to become the man I am today, someone who might not quite deserve you, but will at least do his best to make you happy and to love you the way you deserve.”

Felicity seemed to be out of speech which he knew was a rare thing. So he just smiled and waited for the words to sink in to her. He knew that all of this had to be a lot for her, but he needed her to know everything she had done for him. There was no way for Oliver to ever thank her enough for how much she had saved him.

“There is one more thing,” he added after a while and again waited for her to give him permission to speak. And she did with a smile. “Four years ago when you changed so much, I… you were crying a lot, and I have been in love with you at that time already and-“

“What?” she asked breathlessly. “You’ve been in love with me for the last four years without ever meeting me?”

“I have loved you for the past five years, Felicity,” he sighed with a nod. “And my love for you only increased when I met you. I know it sounds crazy and you don’t have to believe me becau-“

“It’s okay,” she interrupted, her voice stronger now. “I believe you.”

Oliver couldn’t hold back with the smile that warmed his entire body. Felicity believed him although the story sounded so crazy that he wasn’t sure he’d believed it if it had been the other way around.

“Like I said you were crying a lot,” he continued after a while. “And I felt the need to comfort you even if I wasn’t sure whether you could sense me being there. I planned on going on a boat trip with my father, but I wanted to stay close to you which was kind of crazy because you were always with me in my dreams, so it wouldn’t have mattered where I had been, but I felt the need to stay home and… I don’t know how to explain it, but I told him I’d stay home and then-“

“The boat sank,” Felicity finished for him. “And your father died.”

Oliver nodded, and for the first time since he had started telling her about all of this, he broke the eye contact, turning his head to stare at the sun that was now almost completely hidden behind the horizon. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to get rid of the memories he had of his father and the last moments he had with him.

He felt Felicity’s hand move away from between his and released it. Before he could open his eyes to find out why she had taken it away he felt her hand return to his skin. It rested against his cheek now, carefully turning his face back to her.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she whispered then, stroking his cheek, and Oliver relaxed into her touch, snuggling his face into her palm, and sighed contentedly.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he assured her then, locking eyes with her once again. “You have saved me from becoming a brat, and you have saved me from dying. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

Felicity nodded, smiling at him comfortingly. Oliver put the hand that wasn’t keeping hers to his heart on hers on her cheek. He didn’t want to lose the contact. He couldn’t say if he had ever felt so comfortable and so warmed by a simple touch.

His eyes flickered to her lips. He wasn’t sure whether he was going to make it till the end of the night without kissing her. He felt drawn to her lips, completely taken in by the desire to kiss her. He could try kissing her, but he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere.

“I have one more question for now,” Felicity said, letting his eyes snap back to hers. “I think…”

“You can ask me everything, Felicity.”

She smiled softly before biting her bottom lip and staring at him with narrowed eyes, obviously unsure about how to express herself. He waited patiently, rising his hand to her lips and sliding his thumb over her bottom lip to release it from her teeth once more.

“You said,” she began, her breath ghosting over his thumb, and he put his hand back against hers on his face, moving his stubble against her palm to make her smile, “that those dreams stopped before we met. Any theory on that?”

Oliver smiled. “I do have a theory.”

“Care to share it?” she asked with a smile, matching his.

“With you? Always?” he said, making her smile even more. “I think if I hadn’t stopped dreaming about you, I wouldn’t have noticed you when we met in that coffee shop. I was already so convinced that I was never going to meet you that I held onto those dreams more than to reality. Saying I haven’t been with any woman would be a lie, but they never meant anything to me. They were supposed to distract me from being unable to be with you. So I picked some girl in a club and took her home, but I was always careful that she didn’t remind me too much of you, so she couldn’t be blonde or very smart or remind me of you in any other way. That is why I wouldn’t have noticed you in the coffee shop, but I was in a bad mood that day because I had stopped dreaming about you, and I was ripping your head off when you spilled that coffee on me, and then I saw it was you, and everything became a blur.”

Felicity smiled and blushed. Oliver felt his heart clenching. How could she blush when he was telling her everything that was on his heart? Still he loved that red color on her cheeks. It was too sweet to not fall even more in love with her.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked suddenly, a skeptical expression on her face.

Oliver frowned. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, you’ve been staring at me, and I remember reading that if someone looks at you without blinking for more than six seconds it means they are going to kiss you or kill you, and you just said you wanted to rip my head off, so I-“

Hastily Oliver leaned forward, bring his face close to hers. Their noses were touching and her breath ghosted over his face. There still was a little distance between her lips. He looked at her as she hesitated shortly before leaning forwards, closing that distance and locking her lips to his.

Oliver closed his eyes, breathing out audibly through his nose and enjoying the soft feeling of her lips pressed to his. He moved his hand that was keeping hers on his cheek to her cheek, touching her face, memorizing every piece of it while her hand moved to the back of his neck, playing with the short hair there.

Just when he was convincing himself that it was time to pull away and make sure she was still okay with the kiss, he felt her lips moving against his, opening for him, and her tongue sliding above his bottom lip. Willingly he opened for her and sighed into her mouth when her tongue made contact with his.

Not so long ago all of this had seemed impossible. And now here they were, enjoying a sunset on the bay, kissing like lovers who had known each other all their lives. There was no hesitation, no fear of doing anything wrong. It was pure perfection.

And Oliver would give everything in his life to never lose this.


	6. Another Day, Another Dream Come True (But Always You)

Felicity had always been a girl of science. Her believe in dates and facts had stayed untouched up to that moment she had Oliver Jonas Queen, a not only handsome but intelligent and loving man who had made her question everything she had believed in, telling her that she was his soulmate and whatever higher beings there were had made him dream about her for half of his life.

It still sounded crazy to Felicity, but she had given up on any doubt she had had about this being the truth. She knew it was, and she believed Oliver when he said that he loved her, he actually had been loving her for quite a while, spending so much time with her whenever he had been dreaming.

They had had a perfect first date, watching the sunset at a hidden bay. They had talked, or rather he had talked about everything she had wanted to know about his dreams. Oliver had told her everything she had asked for and even more.

And then they had had their even more perfect first kiss. Oliver had leaned over, still keeping a slight distance between their lips for Felicity to close. Felicity couldn’t remember ever being kissed more perfectly.

Six weeks afterwards she was sitting in the coffee shop she had first met him, waiting for him to come back from his appointment at the hospital to get rid of that annoying plaster, the reminder on his heroic act of saving her from getting hit by the car. They were supposed to meet here, and for her to get to know his three best friends.

Felicity was nervous to say the least. She loved Oliver, and she knew that Oliver loved her, so meeting his friends was a big deal for her.

She had met his family in the hospital after his accident already, had met Walter several times since at Queen Consolidated and has been at the Queen’s mansion as Oliver’s official girlfriend last week. Oliver had been hesitant about introducing her to her family. He had wanted to give her some time to get used to their relationship and to let everything he had told her about his dreams sink in.

Felicity was more than grateful that Oliver hadn’t pushed her. Meeting his family again had been quite exciting, but she had noticed that everyone had been more than happy to meet her. Thea had told her that they had almost given up on Oliver ever being in a serious relationship with a woman, but that meant they were only so much happier he had found her.

And now she was going to meet his friends, and Felicity just hoped they were going to be as nice as his family. According to everything she knew about them, she was sure she was going to like them, but their opinion surely meant a lot to Oliver so if they weren’t going to like her it was probably a big problem for her relationship to Oliver which was terrible because she didn’t want to lose him. Six weeks with him, and she already knew that she was where she belonged, so-

“They love you so stop thinking,” a familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and Felicity winced before she relaxed into the sensation of the pair of lips on the side of her jaw.

“How was your appointment?” she asked with a sigh while Oliver kept pressing sweet, little kisses to her face. “Everything alright?”

“Everything is perfect,” he answered against her skin. “My leg is perfect, I closed an important deal this morning, and I have the perfect girlfriend.”

“You are a big sap,” she laughed, but turned her head to kiss him on his lips, lingering there before she pulled back with a groan, remembering where they were and smiled at him. “So… you’re leg is alright?”

“My leg is perfect,” he answered, kissing the tip of her nose before watching her closely with an intense expression in his eyes.

Felicity felt her heart stop beating for a moment before it started pounding against her ribs in excitement.

They hadn’t had sex till now. They were both trying to take things slow, especially since everything else between them happened so fast. They had been close to having sex once, but it had been a little complicated with the plaster, so they had stopped, just lying next to each other and sleeping, snuggling with each other, and it had been okay. Still they both wanted each other. So Oliver’s leg being released from the plaster came right in time for them.

Felicity lowered her head, hiding her face in the crook of Oliver’s neck and smiled quietly. She was sure to find the same excitement about what that meant for the two of them in his eyes, and she also knew that if she looked at him now, they were going to leave, and she wasn’t going to meet his friends. But she wanted to meet his friends, so she held her head ducked under his chin, enjoying the way his lips pressed against the crown of her head once in a while.

It didn’t take long for them to pull apart, though.

As soon as Oliver whispered “They are here”, Felicity moved away from him slightly, still holding his hand, but bringing a respectable distance between them.

Shortly after that three faces she knew from several photos already approached their table, and she smiled nervously, trying to hide her fear of not being accepted or saying something strange.

His friends sat down on the other side of the table, making her feel like being in an interrogation even more, and she squeezed Oliver’s hand asking for support, and he squeezed back immediately, reassuring her.

A strange silence spread between them, and Felicity could swear everyone present could hear her heart beating loudly and nervously against her ribs.

Oliver had his eyes pinned on his best friend Tommy, quietly shooting him angry gazes. Felicity knew that he still wasn’t completely fine with the fact that Tommy had almost risked his happiness with Felicity by not taking her to the espalier of torches that had been supposed to lead her to their date.

“Hi, I’m Laurel,” the dark blonde woman across from her introduced herself with a smile and held her hand to Felicity, who took it to shake it with a smile.

“I’m Felicity,” she answered.

“Oh, we know that,” the other blonde – Felicity remembered that her name was Sara – answered, grinning at Oliver. “Oliver told us everything about you. We know you as good as he knows you, Felicity.”

Felicity laughed a little nervously. If they really knew everything about her, they certainly wouldn’t like her. Felicity could still not quite understand how Oliver could accept all her little flaws, so how were they supposed to?

“I just like to talk about how perfect you are,” Oliver smiled and pressed a kiss against her temple, making her relax.

“And about how imperfect my boyfriend here is,” Laurel added, patting Tommy’s back. He had lowered his head. “Ollie is still pissed at him for almost ruining your date.”

“Oh, yes, he is,” Sara added. “And he lets Tommy feel that.”

Felicity looked at Tommy again, who had still lowered his head, and she felt pity. It hadn’t been Tommy’s fault she had doubted the whole dating thing, and it hadn’t been his fault she had almost turned around either. His behavior might have been part of that, but it hadn’t been the only problem. Felicity had doubted the whole thing before that, and even after she had discovered that Oliver had been there, having planned out the most romantic date Felicity had ever experienced.

“Right, Tommy had this one job and he-“

Before Oliver could tell in how many ways Tommy had managed to fail the task Oliver had assigned him, Felicity slapped his chest, making him stop and look at her immediately.

“Be nice to him,” she demanded. “It wasn’t his fault. I mean, you could have just chosen a place that had been easier to find. Or wait somewhere for me or make signs to lead me to the place. What I’m trying to say is that maybe I would have even doubted this whole thing when Tommy had been with me. So it’s not his fault. Besides, I still got there, and we spent a perfect evening with each other, and now we are together. Everything is fine.”

Felicity felt herself blushing as soon as she realized that everyone was looking at her. She hadn’t meant to talk that much. She had actually intended to just tell Oliver to not be such a jerk to his friend, but of course her mouth hadn’t stopped there.

“You’re right” Oliver said, kissing her forehead before turning to Tommy. “I’m sorry. I know I can be grateful to have such good friends. I wouldn’t have been able to prepare this perfect date for Felicity if you hadn’t helped me. It’s just that I can’t stand the idea that maybe Felicity would have turned around, and we would have never been able to get here. So I’m sorry for being so harsh.”

Felicity smiled happily, pressing a kiss to Oliver’s clothed shoulder and placing her free hand on the back of his hand that was still holding her other hand, so his hand was embraced by hers. She squeezed gently and leaned her head to his shoulder.

That was when she noticed the expression in Oliver’s friends’ eyes as they were staring at her with wide eyes and opened mouths. Immediately Felicity straightened, pulling her hand from the back of Oliver’s hand to run her fingers through her hair nervously.

“What kind of superpower is that?” Sara asked, cocking her head.

“Superpower?” Felicity asked frowning.

“Well, usually Oliver is an obstinate donkey. Even when he knows he’s wrong he sticks to his opinion,” Laurel continued. “And he never, ever apologizes.”

“Which is why you have to have some kind of superpower that allows you to manipulate people’s minds like those TV vampires have,” Tommy finished.

Felicity didn’t know what to say so she looked at Oliver who grinned unashamedly, shrugging his shoulders and murmuring, “I love her.”

And that was answer enough.

 

“I love your friends,” Felicity smiled when she entered the little townhouse she had rented. “I could have stayed with them forever.”

“You could have,” Oliver chuckled, walking behind her with his arms around her waist and her back pressed to his chest, “if you haven’t been so tired that your eyes were falling shut on own accord.”

Felicity sighed, letting her head roll back onto his shoulder and closed her eyes.

“Are you going to carry me to bed?” she yawned.

Oliver chuckled again, leaning down and lifting her from her feet with one arm behind her back and the other under her knees.

They had spent the entire day with his friends. After they had left the coffee shop, they had been to a restaurant, enjoying a delicious meal before heading to a new opened bar where they had enjoyed several drinks, chatting about nothing in particular.

He had known that Felicity had felt comfortable with Sara, Laurel and Tommy. It was something he could only be thankful for. He didn’t know what he would have done if she hadn’t liked them. Considering how much he loved Felicity, he would have seriously considered making new friends.

But of course he hadn’t had to worry about that for too long. Felicity was such a sweetheart, she was loved by everyone and she loved everyone who wasn’t a total jerk.

Oliver placed Felicity, who was half-asleep already, on the sheets of her bed, taking off her shoes and putting the blanket about her tiny form, but she kicked it away, mumbling something he couldn’t quite understand, so he sat down on the edge of the mattress, stroking her cheek until she opened her eyes.

“Can I wear your shirt for sleeping?”

“I think it’s better you just leave your dress put on for tonight, okay?” he asked.

“Are you going to stay here?” Felicity asked, letting Oliver pull the blanket over her once again.

“Of course I’m staying with you,” he smiled, kissing her forehead before taking off his clothes. With only the dark boxer briefs left on him, he slid under the blanket next to her, pulling her tiny body as close to him as possible.

They had slept next to each other most of the nights since their first date. Oliver had suggested they could just move in together already, but Felicity had hesitated so he had told her to just think about it and tell him whenever she was ready, however long it might take.

He sighed softly as Felicity turned around, placing her head on his chest. Her right hand slid to his left shoulder, her left hand up this neck, playing with his short hair.

Oliver knew he could stay like this forever. Lying here, holding Felicity was more than he had ever been able to hope for. And now it was his reality. He had her here in a bed they had shared a lot of times already and would share for a lot of other nights. Careful not to wake her, he bent his neck to press his nose to the crown of her hair, inhaling deeply to smell her hair and reassure himself she was really here with him.

“Oliver?” Felicity asked, turning her head, so her chin rested on his chest and looked up at him with surprisingly clear eyes.

“Yes?” he answered, massaging the back of her neck with one of his hands.

“Is your offer of moving in still on the table?”

Oliver smiled, his heartbeat fastening. He could tell from the soothing movements Felicity’s fingers made on the side of his chest that she could feel it.

“Yes, of course.”

“So… Are you going to move in here?”

He leaned forward, kissing her soundly before answering, “I will get my stuff in here tomorrow.”

Felicity smiled happily, pressing a kiss to his chest before putting her head back down, snuggling her cheek to his naked skin with a satisfied smile and falling asleep.

Oliver kept playing the strands of her hair, watching her sleep.

He had a full plan of how his life was supposed to go from here. He had had this plan before, but now it was all set up, all the important events of the life he was going to share with the woman that was now sleeping on his chest, snoring slightly, were timed in the near future.

He was going to move in with her tomorrow, providing that Felicity could still remember asking him.

Next month he was going to ask her to a romantic dinner on the bay they had had their first date. Going down on one knee and showing her the ring that was already in one of his trouser pockets, he was going to propose.

And although he knew that she was probably going to say that it was too soon, he was still going to ask her and try his best to convince her otherwise. He was going to tell her that he had loved her for so long and that she had been a part of his life for so long he couldn’t be without her anymore. He was always going to love her, no matter how long they were together, and he wanted to spend every second with her, experience everything there was to experience with her, starting with getting married.

They were going to get married the month after that because despite Felicity’s protests she was going to see that they were meant to be with each other and should start their shared life as soon as possible. So with his mother’s and sister’s help they were going to plan a beautiful wedding in the presence of their families and closest friends.

After that was going to take Felicity on a long, long honeymoon. They were going to go on a road trip. Driving in a porsche, they were going to visit every town they wanted to, enjoying their togetherness. They were going to spend every evening, watching the sunset, remembering the date that had been a great start for an even better future.

When they were going to come back a few weeks later, Felicity was going to be pregnant already. So celebrating their first wedding anniversary, they were going to have a mini version of Felicity in their arms. He was hoping for a girl. There couldn’t be enough versions of Felicity in his life.

Oliver smiled softly when Felicity sighed and snuggled even closer to him, pressing her face to the side of his neck and moving her leg to lie between both of his, so she was draped half above him. Automatically he tightened his hold on her.

Not that long ago he hadn’t been able to think about anything better than sleeping soundly, dreaming of his soulmate. Now that she was actually with him, he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to keep watching her, memorizing every detail of her.

But his eyes felt heavy, and he knew it was only a matter of time for him to fall asleep. He had returned to dreaming about Felicity every night since he had met her. But even if he wasn’t going to dream about her, at least nobody was going to steal the moment from him when he woke up next to her.

And there couldn’t be anything better than having her in his reality.

Just when his eyes closed, he felt Felicity turn her head once again, looking at him, and he couldn’t resist to force his eyes to open and to smile at her.

“You’re still a big sap,” she mumbled, and Oliver laughed quietly.

“Yeah, but I’m your big sap.”

Both of them tightened their holds on each other as they fell asleep.

 


	7. Christmas Special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to write extra chapters to some of my fics to get us all through Advent faster.   
> So here is the extra chapter for this fic. ;)

“No!”

“I’m sorry!” Felicity hurried to say at Oliver’s whining. “I am so, so sorry. I swear I will take the first flight available. I am not even going to head to a hotel. I will stay here until the snow storm is over, and I will be on the first plane back to Starling. I promise.”

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip to not accidently spill out that it would most likely take at least ten more hours before the first plane would leave the airport. Fourteen hours ago she had called to tell him that a terrible snow storm was destroying their Christmas plans, and she might not be home before midnight, so all plans for their first Holy Eve together were ruined. Five hours ago she had called and told him that it looked like something was happening, and she might be home in time to celebrate Holy Eve with him after all.

Christmas was a big deal for Oliver. She knew that. He had repeated over and over again how excited he was because it would be their first Christmas together, and although she was Jewish, Felicity had let his excitement infect her. She had really hoped that she was going to make it in time because Holy Eve was the only time that was planned only for the two of them. The rest of the holidays would be spent with their friends and their families. Even her mom would come over from Vegas.

“I am so sorry,” Felicity repeated.

Oliver sighed. “You don’t have to apologize. This isn’t your fault. Unless you were doing some black magic to force the snow storm to ruin our Christmas.”

Felicity laughed lowly. “I didn’t. I promise.”

“Then it’s not your fault,” Oliver explained, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Are you sure that you want to stay at the airport? You could go to a hotel, and-“

“I am sure,” Felicity interrupted him hastily. “Bruce offered me one of his guest rooms already, but I told him that I want to be home as soon as possible to celebrate Christmas with my boyfriend.”

“Fiancé,” Oliver corrected softly.

Smiling, Felicity lowered her gaze to her ring finger where a beautiful diamond ring reminded her that she had finally found her place in the world.

Oliver had proposed to her in the beginning of autumn. Felicity had been… shocked to say the least. They had been together for only three months, and although she had known that for Oliver it had felt like they were together for years because he had dreamed of her every single night since he was a boy, Felicity’s reality had been a little different. She knew that it was different for Oliver, but she didn’t really get it.

She would never forget the moment that Oliver had realized that maybe all of this was too fast for her. He had shook his head with an uncomfortable laugh, and he had apologized for ambushing her like that because of course for her it would be too soon, but in his head he had kind of everything planned out, but of course he had known in the back of his head that it would all be too fast for her. Because she hadn’t had those dreams of him.

Oliver hadn’t been mad or anything. He had just asked if they were still okay, or if he had chased her off with the proposal. Felicity had answered with a soft kiss to his lips.

Later that night she had lain in bed, watching him sleep next to her. And she had realized that although it was all very fast, and marriage and kids seemed to be something that she should wait with a little longer, she had known that she wanted it with him. So she had woken him in the middle of the night, and she had told him to ask her again. Oliver had only answered with a questioning gaze, but she had repeated that he should ask her again. So he had asked her again. And she had answered that if they were still together in one year, then yes, she would marry him.

Nine more months to go through before the wedding plans could be made, Felicity thought with a smile.

“What are you thinking about?” Oliver asked her. “Because I could swear that I can see you smile through the phone.”

“You can’t see me through the phone,” Felicity replied, her smile only widening at the knowledge that of course Oliver would know that she was smiling. He knew her better than anyone else.

“I can hear you.”

“But you can’t hear me smile.”

“Well, I just knew that you were smiling, and now I can hear it in your voice. So tell me, what are you thinking about?”

“You. Us,” Felicity replied.

“That’s my favorite topic, you know?”

“I know. I get regular messages of Tommy, Sara and Laurel, telling me that you are a terrible pain in the ass and that you are whining all the time because I am not with you.”

“Well, it’s Christmas. You were supposed to be here.”

“I know. I am so-“

“Don’t apologize, Felicity,” Oliver interrupted her. “This is not your fault.”

She wanted to tell him that she missed him, and that she really wanted to be with him right now because she had wanted to celebrate Christmas with him, but there were noises at Oliver’s end of the conversation.

“Felicity?” he asked over those noises.

“Yes?”

“Sorry, I gotta go now. I promised Thea to watch a Christmas movie with her. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Felicity replied. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As soon as Felicity hung up, she saw the blinking symbol in the right corner of the display, telling her that her battery was at only three percent now. Groaning, she sent Oliver a message that he phone was going off any second and put the phone into her purse and thought about what to do now. She had her tablet with her, but she knew that the battery was almost completely used up, too. She should probably save the little she had left of it to contact Oliver when she was finally getting a flight, so he could pick her up from the airport.

That was not how she had envisioned her first Christmas with him, she thought with a sigh, and closed her eyes. She was terribly tired, but since she had spent the last days setting up a project of Queen Consolidated and Wayne Enterprise, she shouldn’t be surprised. She had known that she would have to spend every free minute working to get back in time for Christmas. She hadn’t known that Bruce Wayne himself was going to discuss said project with her, though. And although working with him had been very great because he had had a lot of good ideas, it had still tired her out.

So all she really wanted was to be in the townhouse she shared with Oliver, sliding into the bed they shared and letting him hold her.

Without realizing so, she started playing with the engagement ring on her hand.

God, she just missed Oliver.

 

“News of Felicity?” Thea asked when Oliver had come downstairs and stepped into the living room where she already waited with a dozen DVDs they could watch.

“No change,” he said with a sigh. “She is probably not coming home before the night. And given what I just heard in the weather report, I doubt that she is even coming home before tomorrow afternoon.”

“I would have liked her to be here,” Thea said. “I like her.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Oliver said, making a face at her to lighten the mood.

The fact that Felicity and he would have to spend the major part of their first Christmas separated shouldn’t ruin Christmas for everyone else and especially not for Thea.

“So, what movies did you pick?” he asked, getting down on the floor next to her and skimming the titles of the movies. “Really? _Love actually?_ Just because it takes time on Christmas doesn’t make it a Christmas movie, Thea.”

Thea rolled her eyes in a way she had certainly adapted from Oliver. The two of them were definitely spending too much time with one another…

“ _How the Grinch stole Christmas?_ Haven’t you seen that movie that often that you can actually speak it along?” Oliver asked because as far as he remembered Thea had loved that movie that much that she had watched it every single day, no matter whether it was summer or winter. At some point their mother had taken the movie away from her because she hadn’t been able to endure it any longer.

“ _Little Lord Fauntleroy_? How do you even know that one?”

“Felicity,” Thea said, shrugging her shoulders. “You know, I thought she would come here, too, and she told me that she and her mother watched it often when she was younger. I thought it was a nice way to show her that she is home here now, too.”

Oliver looked at his little sister. He hadn’t known that Felicity had loved this movie. Sometimes he was still surprised that there were actually things he didn’t know about her. He had known her for so long before they had first met, and he had watched her doing so many things that sometimes he was surprised when there things that still surprised him.

“We’ll watch this one,” Oliver announced, waving with the DVD to what apparently had once been Felicity’s favorite movie.

“What a surprise,” Thea said, laughing.

While his little sister was preparing the movie, Oliver sat back on the couch and grabbed one of the cookies Rasia had baked them. He took the first bite and smiled at the slight change of taste. Usually – every year he could remember to be exact – Rasia had baked cookies with nuts, and they had been delicious. This year there were no nuts in the cookies. Oliver had banned everything that even possibly had some nuts in it.

It was another change that had happened within the last years. Felicity was allergic to nuts, and he didn’t want to risk that she accidently ate something that would cause an allergic shock.

Oliver smiled. So many changes had happened because of Felicity. His life had changed to the better. He was happy, maybe for the first time.

When the movie started, Thea sat down next to him, snuggling up to him, and he put his arms around her. They watched the movie in silence. It was a Queen Siblings Christmas Tradition that they watched a movie in the afternoon of the 24th of December. When they had been younger, the whole family had gone into church. After that the presents had been opened, and then they had sat down for dinner.

Part of the routine had crumbled a bit when their father had died a few years ago. Nobody had felt the will to continue with traditions that had originally included him. But Oliver and Thea had never stopped watching a movie together. Last month she had asked whether they were still going to do that this year, now that he had moved out and into a townhome with Felicity. He had laughed and told her that of course they were going to watch a movie, and Thea had immediately asked Felicity whether she wanted to join them.

Felicity was a part of this family, Oliver thought with a smile. She was accepted not just as his girlfriend and fiancée, but also as a person on her own. She was like a sister to Thea, a second daughter to Moira and Walter.

When the movie ended, Oliver stretched his legs out with a sigh and said, “I will head home now.”

“Are you not staying here?” Thea asked, looking at him in surprise. “Mom thought you were staying here now that Felicity is still in Gotham. You don’t want to tell me that you are planning on sitting alone in your house all evening and night, waiting for her to call or something.”

“I am going to sit all evening and night in our house, waiting for her to call and tell me when I should pick her up from the airport,” Oliver simply replied, getting up from the couch.

“Why don’t you stay here and wait here for her call?”

“Because I still gotta set a few things up for when she comes home,” Oliver replied, walking into the entrance hall. Thea followed him.

“You know that you can’t do the whole romantic candle thing you have planned,” Thea objected. “If you pick her up from the airport in the middle of the night, nobody will be there to lighten the candles. Come on, Ollie! It’s Christmas tradition that you are here.”

“Well, from now on it is Christmas tradition that I will spend the evening with Felicity,” Oliver replied with a smile, putting on his jacket, and pressed a kiss to his sister’s forehead. “We’ll see each other tomorrow. Merry Christmas, Thea.”

“Merry Christmas,” she sighed, hugging him tightly. “But I guess every day is like Christmas now that you are finally with her, right?”

Oliver didn’t miss the teasing tone in his sister’s voice, but still all he could do was smile and say, “Right.”

Felicity’s and his townhouse was at the other end of the city. While he was driving, he dialed her number, but she didn’t pick up. He had already started to worry that something might have happened and simultaneously formed hope that maybe she was already on a plane when he remembered that she had sent him a message that her battery was empty, and she would contact him via video chat.

Sighing, he opened the door to the townhouse and looked around. He had put candles and roses everywhere. He had wanted to have a really romantic atmosphere for tonight, and even after her first phone call about the snow storm he hadn’t let the weather change his plans. Obviously the weather hadn’t care about his plans, though.

Oliver changed into some more comfortable clothes, poured himself a glass of red wine and slid into bed with one of the photo albums Felicity had put together during the last months. It had turned out that she loved memorizing things and thanks to some websites that offered the possibility to put albums together and print them, she could combine two of her favored activities – creating something that would always help her remember what she had done in her life and working on her tablet.

Sighing, he looked at the empty spot next to him in bed. He could still see her sitting there with her tablet in her lap and her glasses on the tip of her nose while she was picking out photos for the album she was working on, distantly chewing on a pen.

He missed her. Those last months he had gotten so used to her always being there that it felt wrong when they were separated for even twenty-four hour.

When he felt his tiredness growing, Oliver lay down, pulling her pillow to his side of the bed to dig his face into the fabric that still smelled like her. He fell asleep, his brain being tricked into believing that she was right next to him with the smell of her hair in his nose.

 

Oliver woke up to gentle hands, caressing his scalp. Humming, he burrowed his face a little further into the pillow. He didn’t want to wake up yet. He wanted to stay asleep for a little while longer and dream the wonderful dream he had had about Felicity. He rarely ever dreamed of what she was doing anymore, mainly because when he was asleep, she slept right next to him, snuggled up to his body. He still dreamed about her, though. He dreamed of what they had done together, and what they would still do together.

Usually he preferred waking up to dreaming since he knew that the moment he woke up, he would find her sleeping or sitting next to him in bed. She often woke up before him and started working on her table. She rarely ever left the bed before he woke up, knowing how much he enjoyed seeing her as the first thing in the morning.

Today he didn’t want to wake up, though. When he woke up, he would be alone in bed because Felicity was still in Gotham. The fact that she was stroking over his hair now wasn’t going to-

Oliver stopped in his thoughts. She was stroking over his hair. He knew her hand, knew how it felt against his hair. That had to mean that she was here, right next to him. Hastily he opened his eyes and turned his head to see her lying next to him, her face hovering over his face.

“Hi,” she whispered with a loving smile.

“Hi,” he said, wondering whether she was really here.

Carefully he reached out a hand and put it to the soft skin of her cheek. His smile grew. She really was here. In a swift movement he wrapped his arms around her waist and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him.

“You’re back,” he said while she was giggling. “God, I missed you. Why didn’t you call? I would have picked you up from the airport.”

Felicity rested her head on his shoulder, nuzzling his neck, before she answered, “I didn’t want to wake you in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, you can always wake me,” Oliver replied, burrowing his nose in her hair and inhaling her scent. “The snow storm finally over?”

“Most of it,” Felicity replied. “But you have to thank Bruce Wayne that I made it here that soon. As soon as air traffic has started again, he had called and asked whether I wanted to take his private jet, so I could make it home in time to at least celebrate the rest of the holidays with you.”

Oliver groaned lowly. “I don’t want to thank Bruce for anything.”

Chuckling, Felicity kissed the side of his neck. With a sigh she rested her head back on his shoulder. They stayed like that for a while, nobody saying a word. He could feel Felicity’s breath ghost over the skin of his neck and enjoyed the feeling of knowing that she was back home.

“So…” she started after a while. “You watched your movie with Thea yesterday?”

“Yes,” he replied, closing his eyes and continuing to breathe her in.

“Let me guess, she had a bunch of movies at hand that you didn’t want to watch. And then you found _Little Lord Fauntleroy,_ and really didn’t want to watch it, but she said that it was one of my favorite movies which was why you picked that movie. Then later you drove home, and looked at one of the photo albums before you fell asleep with you head in my pillow.”

“Very clever,” Oliver said, knowing that he was still lying on her pillow, and the empty glass as well as the photo album was still on his nightstand beside him, “but I am a little offended by the fact that you chose to call Thea to make her tell you all of that. You should have called me.”

“So I was right?”

“Sure. Why would Thea lie to you?”

Oliver felt Felicity tense on top of him. It was only slightly, but it was enough for him to feel it with her body pressed tightly to his, his arms wrapped around her.

“Felicity?” he asked quietly.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, biting down on her bottom lip. Wordlessly Oliver reached out his hand and released her lip from her teeth, almost sighing when her lips pressed a kiss to his thumb in thanks.

“I didn’t call Thea,” Felicity said after a while. “I dreamed about it.”

 

She had fallen asleep at the airport with her chin resting on her chest which she regretted now badly because her neck hurt like hell from the uncomfortable position. Felicity had thought that she had just dreamed of Oliver like children dreamed of having ice cream – they wanted to have it, so they dreamed that they had it. She had thought that she had just imagined watching him watching a movie with Thea and do all the things he had done because she had really wanted to it with him.

So she hadn’t thought for even the shortest second that maybe she had dreamed of him the way he had dreamed of her for so many years. Besides, Felicity knew that Oliver had never heard her talk in his dreams, so she had always thought that if she ever dreamed of him, then it would be the same for her. The only reason she had made that comment about the movies had been because she had wanted to make joke or whatever.

For the first time since she knew Oliver and his dreams about her she had a slight feeling for how that felt. She had watched him do something although he had been at the other end of the state. Although they had been so far away from one another, Felicity had felt weirdly connected to him.

And she had only had that dream once, she thought. How must Oliver have felt, dreaming of her for all those years?

“Felicity?” Oliver asked carefully, putting a hand to her cheek. “Are you okay? I know that realizing that those dreams aren’t dreams but reality can pretty much shake you.”

“Well, it’s strange,” Felicity said, frowning at him. “It feels strange, but… it was very comforting to see you. I missed you.”

Oliver smiled softly, and she mirrored that smile. “I missed you, too.”

When Oliver lifted his head from the pillow, she lowered hers, so their lips could meet in a gentle kiss. Oliver’s tongue opened her lips for him, and she gladly allowed him to stroke his tongue into her mouth. Oliver sat up completely, pulling her closer which wasn’t exactly easy since she was still wearing her boots and coat. As soon as she had stepped into their home, she had hurried upstairs to see him.

While most of her body was fully enjoying the way Oliver’s arms wrapped around her and his body welcomed her back, her brain was distracted trying to wrap around the fact that she had dreamed about him the same way he had dreamed about her, only that she had heard his and everyone else’s voices.

There was no scientific explanation for this. There was no reason why this should have happened. How was that even possible? She had asked herself the very same questions when Oliver had told her about his dreams, and although she hadn’t gotten a scientific answer, she had accepted that he had told her the truth, and she had believed him, but this was different. Seeing it herself, feeling it herself, experience it herself. It was different.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Oliver asked, pulling back slightly.

“Isn’t it strange to be so connected to someone that even when you are asleep your soul wants nothing more than that person, so it leaves the body to find that other person?”

“Well, that is basically how I felt for years now,” Oliver replied with a chuckle, opening her coat, taking it off and throwing it to the floor next to the bed. “And at least you know who I am, where to find me and that I am yours. And you heard me speaking. You have all the advantages I didn’t have.”

Felicity stroked over his hair, sighing lowly, and pressed her lips to his in a loving kiss.

“Do you think that will happen more often from now on?”

“Maybe,” Oliver replied. “But you can only find out when you are sleeping.”

Felicity pressed her lips together and grinned. “I don’t want to sleep right now.”

“Good,” Oliver answered with a smile right before their lips met in a bruising kiss.

Their lips stayed locked for a while until Oliver’s moved down her face and her neck to her shoulder. He pushed the fabric of her dress aside to suck at her sensitive skin, making Felicity only happier that she was home again.

She had missed him so much, more than she had thought before she had left to Gotham. They were kind of inseparable since their first date, and she had thought that maybe she would be relieved to have a few days without him because although Oliver was perfect and always gave her what she wanted and needed, she had thought that maybe being alone for more than a few hours might be something she didn’t know she needed. She hadn’t needed time alone. Her dream had proven how much she loved Oliver and wanted him with her.

“Oliver?” she whispered into his ear.

“Hm?” he hummed against the side of her neck, not stopping to suck the skin into his mouth and scrape it with his teeth.

“Maybe we don’t have to wait a year.”

Oliver looked up in surprise. She didn’t have to clarify what she meant for him to know. He had always thought that if she was going to change something about the time till the get married, she would prolong it. And he would have understood because she just didn’t know him as long as he knew her. He would always put his own wishes and desired behind hers.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We don’t have to rush anything. We can still get married in years from now.”

Felicity cocked her head. “Are you taking back your proposal?”

“Never.”

“Well, then I tell you that maybe I will be ready before we have been together for a year.”

“I mean it, we don’t have to rush anything,” Oliver repeated.

“I know,” Felicity said. “But this dream… it was… I don’t know… Look, I know that we don’t have to rush anything, but I also think that it is a rare thing that life or whatever higher powers there might be, give you a sign like those dreams that you have found your soulmate.”

“We don’t have to decide that now,” Oliver stated after a while. “Maybe you won’t continue dreaming about me.”

“I know,” Felicity answered. “That is why I said ‘maybe’.”

She lowered her head to kiss him once more, and Oliver wanted to take the opportunity to continue where they had left when Felicity pulled back once more, and asked, “Were all those candles and roses downstairs for me?”

“Damn it,” Oliver hissed, putting his head back. “I knew I should have put them away after that hot redhead left.”

He looked at her teasingly, but Felicity only snorted. “You would never cheat on me. You love me too much to do that to me.”

Oliver sighed. “Yeah… probably.”

They smiled at each other for a while before Oliver suggested, “How about you stay here for another twenty minutes while I prepare everything downstairs?”

“I should warn you that I might fall asleep,” Felicity explained.

Oliver put his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Just keep in mind that if you are still awake in twenty minutes, I’ll do the thing we did before you left.”

Felicity gasped and nodded fiercely. “I’ll stay here. Hurry up!”

Oliver got out of bed and only turned around at the doorframe.

“Felicity?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And merry Christmas.”

“I am Jewish.”

“Right. So… Happy Hanukkah.”

When he left, Felicity let herself fall into the pillows behind her with a content smile.

She had finally found where she belonged and who she belonged with.

And she couldn’t be happier.


End file.
